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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993407">Body of Years</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiansinoctober/pseuds/lesbiansinoctober'>lesbiansinoctober</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Sticks [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Autism, Autistic Spencer Reid, Drug Use, Hotch is a slut and Rossi isnt here, Team as Family, autistic character who isn't spencer lol, the movie specifically, when u picture jos work imagine the pie shop from waitress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:01:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,844</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiansinoctober/pseuds/lesbiansinoctober</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Maeve dies, his world stops. The one he was building with her, but the real one as well. Unfortunately, Spencer has too many people depending on him to be able to keel over and give up. That includes a little brother and his caretaker that Spencer left behind many years ago.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Sticks [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. sheet of veneer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts at about 10 in the morning. Jo locks the door behind her with a shake and a jingle of her keys. She makes sure to take note of the way they weigh down her pockets, just to be safe. Elias walks in front. His hands conduct a small symphony, one Jo is certain sounds as loud and excited as he does. An iPad in a thick, spongy, green case flaps against his thigh, strung around his neck and one arm through. It scrunches in what can only be an uncomfortable way at the neck, and Jo reminds herself to pick up some fleece scraps from the fabric store so she can sew him a strap cushion.</p><p>“Wait up, mister,” she calls ahead of her. Elias must hear, or at least take note that she’s so far behind, because he turns around to meet her.</p><p>“Work, and then library, and then groceries and then home?” Elias grabs Jo’s empty hand. He resists her attempts to swing it as she answers his question.</p><p>“Sounds good, kid.”</p><p>“I can call Spencer?” He smiles as if it will make her more inclined to say yes.</p><p>Jo tuts. “When do we usually call him?” She lifts her arm to show her watch.</p><p>“It’s 10:13. We call Spencer at 10:13,” he says, grin even wider this time.</p><p>“Hmmm… I’m not sure that’s the truth.” Jo pauses. “I’ve been having a hard time reaching him. I’ll call him after I set you up in the booth, okay? When I head to the back. If he picks up, you can talk.” Elias nods.</p><p>He spends the rest of the walk taking in the sights of their familiar route. Somehow, the two of them make the short walk downtown to the restaurant where Jo works almost daily, and still, Elias finds something new to comment on. He is a fan of people watching, pointing out the unique characters of this particular walk or the day to day ensembles of the people who frequent the area. God forbid you become an outfit repeater on the streets of Las Vegas. He does much the same when Jo gets him settled in the rear-most booth of the restaurant. She shirks off his backpack, heavy and stuffed with the library books they plan to return on their trip home. Elias slides right in, used to the softened, cracking pleather and the way the dim lights above him were outshined by the windows towards the front. Jo took short shifts, today only from 11 to 3, and he can usually entertain himself for the four hours. As long as she kept him out of the dinner rush, the restaurant was a place Jo was certain would be meltdown-free. Though short, that list was precious.</p><p>It continues at the library. Elias had been more than distractible at the restaurant, but the library was a special exception. Much like his older brother, Elias had a bit of tunnel vision when it came to books. Jo could remember many afternoons she had spent with the brothers, back when she and the older Reid had been juggling college and Elias, tucked into a quiet room of the library. They had a standing reservation for one. Spencer would collect his best selections for all three, but would spend most of the time reading his picks to Elias.

</p><p>So, it only made sense that Elias began asking about Spencer again when they arrived.</p><p>“Eli, not right now. He’s working.”</p><p>The boy’s groan could be heard throughout the entire first floor. The librarian at her desk controls her head cocking, knowing she had seen the familiar pair walk through the door only a few moments ago. Jo hands him the bulky backpack and frowns. “Dude, that’s not helping. We can text him after we put our books in the slot, deal?”

</p><p>Elias nods. The incentive is enough to lead him through the task unprompted. His hands struggle to combine the unzipping motions, the shuffling through books to lift out one, and the opening of the book drop off, but he maneuvers through them with determination.</p><p>“Nice job, Eli! That was the best one I’ve ever seen.” Jo’s voice is drained of emotion, but she means what she says. This is a skill they’ve been working on for years now.</p><p>Elias ignores the praise. Once his bag is zipped, he hands it back to Jo to sling across her back again, and looks at her expectantly.</p><p>When Jo only returns the looks, he rolls his eyes and pulls his iPad from his side. Jo watches as he clicks through People into Family. “Spencer,” the device says, in Spencer’s own voice. He had volunteered to voice Elias’s device years ago, when they had hit a wall in terms of Elias’s communication. The three of them had carried around small, laminated booklets of words Elias might be trying to say before they tired of it. Even now, when they meet a new friend or Elias discovers a new thing to fixate on, Spencer will record a few new words to fill the newfound deficit in communication.</p><p>“I know, bun. Here.” She slips her phone out of her pocket, unlocks it, and hands it to Elias. “Ask him for some recommendations.” She looks away from the screen when he clicks into the conversation she has with Spencer. No one really needs to know how many texts have gone unanswered.</p><p>“Hi brother its elias. What should i read today,? Jo says quick fast go home,” his text reads. Stifling a laugh, Jo drops her phone back into her back pocket, hoping to be surprised by a notification.

</p><p>It finishes when they arrive home. Intermittently throughout their walk, Elias had requested Spencer. Sometimes, just to keep it spicy, he’d throw Jo’s name in there. The two ambled up the short hill to their apartment, Elias with one grocery bag dangling precariously from jittery fingers, and Jo with the remaining three splayed out between her hands, digging into the flesh just a little.</p><p>Jo hadn’t minded when he neglected to call her back. She barely noticed when he hadn’t sent a letter for last month. She even ignored when her birthday came and went without word from him. But, now it’s different. She can’t distract Elias from his brother’s absence any longer, and it’s making her a little more than nervous.</p><p>She set him up with their house phone as a last ditch effort.</p><p>Elias’s skinny fingers wiggle expectantly when he dials the phone. He is sitting in their small living room, settled firmly into his favorite spot on the couch. As it rings, he shakes his leg, a little bounce to use some of the energy he tended to gather far too much of. He looks to Jo, eyes squinting but hinging on uneasy. All she can do is nod.</p><p>“Hi, this is Dr. Spencer Reid. Sorry I couldn’t take your c--”. Spencer’s voice mail tone was cut off by an irate Jo hanging up the phone. Elias, either from rejection or seeing his caretaker so angry, leaned back. His eyes were now wide, filled with much more than unease. His once wiggling fingers clamped together into shaking fists.</p><p>“I know, kid. I’m sorry,” Jo says. She stops her pacing and sits next to Elias. The panic-stricken eyes soften again and he pushes her arms open to take place between them. Jo is used to this sort of attack and welcomes it.</p><p>“How many?” Elias says. There is no inflection, but it’s a question all the same. Even without, Jo is relieved to hear his voice. It always denoted a deescalation in emotion.</p><p>“How many what? Missed calls?” She can’t hear a response and doesn’t feel a nod, so she shrugs. “Too many to count.”</p><p>Elias heaves out an almost comical sigh. “I’m counting.”</p><p>“You know, I have half a mind to march our sorry asses all the way to Quantico myself.” Jo lets this stupid, exhausting day out with her words and falls back into the couch. Elias is more than glad to come with her.</p><p>The two stay in this flopped out, too-close-for-the-Nevada-heat position for only a moment. Soon enough, Elias is up, walking circles around the living room with small, hopping steps. Jo can only watch, knowing her stomach is feeling much of the same uncertainty he is.</p><p>---</p><p>In Virginia, the situation is similarly confusing and stressful. Aaron Hotchner is a man who has been at the helm of this very, very shaky ship for a great long time. He is used to the dips, the way it takes a nosedive at the worst of times. He has seen it through many a storm, taken it out into the open ocean with little more than his hand to navigate with the stars. Somehow they find their way out, always have.</p><p>So, with their boy genius out of commission in his post-Maeve stupor, things have operated just about normally. Reid still has a few weeks of bereavement leave left, and Hotch is relatively certain he’ll take it. The BAU, while workaholics in the truest sense of the word, have tended to return from personal tragedy before they should. But Reid has been different. The group have scarcely heard from him, have left him to his own devices more or less. In his absence, they each do a little bit more Google-ing in order to make up for the lack of statistics.</p><p>This is why Hotch arrives early, stealing a moment of solace in his office. He picks at the case files covering his desk, thumbs through the paperwork from old cases he’s supposed to have done by now. His thoughts don’t catch up with either pile, not incensed to crack open either one and get to work. He leans back in his chair, rough hand passing over his eyes. In this brief moment, he strays for just a second, wondering if Haley has texted. His hand almost makes it to his phone before he realizes. The crash back to reality is jarring. He supposes, much like Spencer, he will eventually stop grieving. While much more infrequent, Aaron cannot say he never misses his wife.</p><p>Soon, the team collects at their table and prepares to debrief on the latest. Hotch joins them. He takes his usual seat, smiling a bit at what creatures of habit they all are. They leave a seat open for Spencer, right in the middle of it all.</p><p>When she settles in her little cave hours later, Penelope Garcia feels about the same. She’s gathered the preliminary information on their case, any digging she’s done on the major players, possible missing persons that could fit their Jane Doe, anything she has. Compiled, she sends it in a tiny, labelled message to her teammates and closes it. When that’s not enough, she turns her monitor off. The room can’t be dark, she’s got too many little lights dotted around the environment, but the dimming is welcome. Her head feels heavy, hulking on her neck. Blown up like a balloon filled with air from her lungs. Not light enough to float.</p><p>By now, she’s exhausted her positive-energy-love-bombing ideas for making the situation so happy that everyone forgets how shitty it all is. She has sent her gifts, she has resorted to peppy texts filled with attachments that Reid will never open. Somewhere along the way, maybe, she thinks she should’ve gotten used to being not enough.</p><p>Only a minute is allocated to her wallowing, and then Garcia shakes her head. The monitor alights again and opens her programs. She’s run background searches, just-in-cases to answer any questions of connections between victims her team might call about. Unsurprisingly, nothing comes up.</p><p>What is surprising is the phone ringing. Brimming with fuzzy and squishy and that rubbery-pully plastic that leaves a powder on your fingers, the room doesn’t allow for much echo. The tinny rattling still stretches out around her ears.</p><p>“What, baby girl, too busy to flirt with me now?”</p><p>Penelope can only laugh into the receiver. “Too busy for you? Unheard of. What’cha need, love muffin?”</p><p>“Whatever you can find on the drug scene of Western Mass. We think our unsub could be connected.”</p><p>Garcia begins the search before his sentence is completed. “You will have your answers in due time, my love. If you can be a good boy and wait, there’ll be something extra in it for you,” she teases.

</p><p>Morgan’s smile, though inaudible, reaches her through the phone. “Yes, ma’am. I desperately await your call.” The line is quiet for a moment. “And baby girl… I know you’re worried about the kid, but there’s only so much we can do.”</p><p>Penelope can’t decide if she should start an argument now, but the negative part of her brain wins out. “But what if this is not as much as I can do? There has to be more.”</p><p>“Do whatever you can, mama. But protect yourself in the process.”</p><p>With a soft swallow, Garcia nods. “When did Derek Morgan become so wise?”</p><p>“Hey, I’ve always been this wise! You’ve just been distracted by my devious good looks.”</p><p>“Ah. That must be the issue.”</p><p>In the quiet of the room once the call has been ended, she leans back in her chair. “Shit.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. bat and a blade</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Josephine - it’s very unlike you to miss a payment. Keep this up and those noise complaints for that boy of yours won’t be ignored</span>
  </em>
  <span>”. Jo suppresses the urge to throw her phone across the room, choosing instead to leave it downturned on her bed. It sits there mockingly while she paces frantic circles around her small room. It isn’t the first passive aggressive text message she has gotten from their landlord, but it is the first missed rent payment. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” she mutters, feet comfortable repeating the same loop. She wants to feel bad for Spencer, feel worry. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants</span>
  </em>
  <span> to, but she doesn’t. He isn’t dead, she knows that. That one is information she would’ve received by now. He isn’t in prison, he isn’t in the hospital. These are things someone along the way would’ve told her. She wants to feel bad but mostly she is just angry. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She stops her pacing and picks up her phone. Her call log is exclusively Spencer’s phone number and she doesn’t think twice to add another attempt to the list. Neither is she surprised to hear the automated voicemail answering. “Spencer,” she says between clenched teeth. “Jesus. You couldn’t let us know you were going to disappear for weeks? You couldn’t ask someone else to tell us you don’t plan on having any contact with your fucking brother anymore? Spence, he's obsessed with you, you damn know that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She breathes, finger hovering over the button to hang up. “Whatever is going on, you could just tell us. Or maybe if we weren’t some huge secret, one of your friends could.” She pauses, growing angry once more. “I don’t fucking care about the money. You know I don’t care about the money. But if you’re going to go fucking missing, at least let me know so I can pick up more shifts at work.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jo struggles to hang up with her shaking fingers. She sinks down onto the floor, few sobs escaping her lips. For the first time in years, she lets herself feel real, true fear.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“His fucking friends,” she repeats, sitting up straight. Once, when Spence first joined the BAU, she had researched his team. He was like her big brother, leaving to go do something big and interesting! She just wanted to know where he was going. Plus, it was nice to have something to say when Elias asked his many, many questions. So, she looked into it. The internet had little information about the unit, about its small number of members. But today, certainly there would be more.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it doesn’t take Jo very long to find it. Under his field office, she finds his unit, finds his team members, even a little picture of his smiling face, taken ages ago when it was much skinnier and younger. “She looks nice,” Jo says, clicking on the photo of one Penelope Garcia. Attached is an email, one Jo is certain must be spammed with bullshit regularly. She doesn’t really have a better idea, though, so she types up a short, vague, ramble-y message and clicks send.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By now Spencer is well acquainted with his ceiling. It’s veiny, popcorn ceiling that his eyes have traced and traced and traced for the past two weeks. He had tried to sit on his couch, legs dangled in the air, head hanging lazily off the seat, but he grew lightheaded too quickly. So, he has spent the endless days, waking or sleeping, on his living room floor. There’s a crack in the middle, splitting a particularly large chunk of crackle in half nicely. There’s a small, maybe 5 centimeter area in the far right corner that has almost no popcorn at all. There’s a bug squished towards his left that must have been here since he moved in, since he has no recollection of squishing it himself. Somewhere, buried underneath the metabolic processes that have yet to stop, despite his pleading, he recognizes that he is hungry. Eidetic memory or not, he can’t remember the last time he made himself a meal. The floor sticks to the sweaty skin of his arms as he peels himself up. The short walk to the kitchen feels like fire on his sleeping feet. Though dim, the sun flitting in from gaps in his curtains seems like a personal attack. He refrains of groaning, wanting desperately to subvert the image of being completely and entirely pathetic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He finishes his walk to the kitchen, shoves half a slice of bread into his mouth, and is unable to close it to chew. His hands hang limply at his sides. Somewhere, miles and miles away from his head and even further from his body, his phone rings. It rings and rings and Spencer thought he turned it off weeks ago. And then he remembers he turned it back on to buy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Buy. He bought. He bought and he turned his fucking phone back on and now its ringing so fucking loud right next to his ears that he considers throwing it out his covered windows.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It stops. His brain, once entirely empty, is filled to the brim. And the only thought is drugs.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A few months ago, Jo’s dentist had said she was a case of complete remission from grinding her teeth. He had bragged to his coworkers. Now, he might be a bit disappointed in her. The sound vibrates through her skull as she makes her way to her bedroom. It’s messy, clothes tossed around from nights where Elias needs more attention than she has energy to give, books left in piles beside her bed where she swore they’d incentivize her to read. On her dresser lays yarn and fabric she has planned projects for but hasn’t found time for since Spencer has vanished. As she scans quickly, she forces herself to look away from the fraying suitcase crammed under her bed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She finds her laptop stuffed under her pillow, where she must have left it after a particularly riveting Netflix marathon of some shitty teen drama. Not that she can remember, because she absolutely puts those things on as background noise and not to pay attention to, but it might have kept her up late quite a few times. Sometimes, she wakes up in awkward and disorientating positions that take a few days to reset her body from. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She drags the laptop into the living room to join Elias in the Houdini documentary that has him entirely enthralled. She opens her email first. Nothing. No response, not even a failure to send. Suddenly, she feels a lot more alone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Elias bounces excitedly at her side. Jo tries to smile, usually more than content to watch her boy just live. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I could call my boss and ask for a week or two off. He loves Eli, he’d never fire me,” Jo reasons to herself. “We have enough saved to make the trip.” She looks to Elias. He has everything but the television tuned out, reciting the words to the documentary along with the narrator. To be fair, Jo has watched it with him enough time that she could probably do the same thing. But, every once in a while, he’ll turn to her and point up at it. Just trying to share a little bit of the happiness he’s got right in front of him with her. She has always been envious of the way a smile takes up his entire face. It seems like the actual grin part just devours his cheeks, and the way his eyes shine. No one has ever felt that happy, she thinks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something must be wrong, right? Something must be seriously wrong for Spencer to just disappear on them like this. It’s more than anger and it’s more than whatever she feels at this point. Elias is his brother and Jo is close to family. They owe it to him to go to Virginia and investigate, right? She owes it to Elias, at least. Sure, Jo thinks, Spencer might go a few weeks without calling if work gets really rough. It’s a nasty job, it’s gotta get bad. But he would never miss a rent payment. He never has in 8 years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But she’d have to be crazy to drag Elias 2,000 miles, on a train no less. If he couldn’t handle it… Hell, Jo isn’t sure that even she could handle that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Eli?” Jo asks. “Buddy, come here.” Something about her tone, maybe or the way she can’t hide the fear on her face brings him onto the couch next to her quickly. He pulls his speech device into his lap just in case. “You know how we’ve been trying to talk to Spencer for a while now?” Elias stares almost through her, but she can only assume he’s listening. “I think, maybe, something is wrong.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In the time it takes her to get a handle on what she could possibly say next, Elias speaks. “Spencer”, his device voices, “Spencer, trouble”. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jo nods. “Eli, do you want to go to Virginia to see Spencer?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Spencer,” he says again. “Yes, Spencer”.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Yes, Penelope Garcia is the resident queen of all things technological. And yes, she is aware that the BAU is frequently the target for all sorts of icky things from all sorts of terribly icky people. Despite the way she portrays herself, the way she adorns her body and her space with brightness, she isn’t running from that. It’s not cowardly to not want to think about those horrors at all times of the day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is why, when she checks her FBI email, she has 102 unread emails. This is also why, when she opens the email from </span>
  <a href="mailto:joeykangaroo245@aol.com">
    <span>joeykangaroo245@aol.com</span>
  </a>
  <span>, it is 4 days old. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The subject line is what catches her eye. “Spencer Reid M.I.A.” it reads. Penelope opens it immediately. “Hi Penelope, my name is Jo. I am an old friend of Spencer Reid’s and I’ve heard you work with him at the FBI. I haven’t heard from him in weeks and am starting to get worried. Please tell him to contact Jo immediately. He will understand. Sorry if you have no idea who he is, I might be wrong. Thanks in advance.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Penelope reads over it twice. Three times. She doesn’t have the memory of their boy genius, but she is pretty certain she has never heard Spencer talk about a Jo. She was relatively sure he had no friends from Las Vegas at all, not to mention any he kept in contact with.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If he has never told them about this Jo, there must be a reason, right? If he hasn’t talked to this Jo in a while, he must just not want to speak to her, right? So, it’s not totally unreasonable for her to look into her. Just to make sure, right, that telling him this girl is looking for him is the right thing to do?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is what she tells herself as she looks into it. “I’m protecting him,” she says, searching for all accounts related to the email. There’s little there, probably a backup email. This is when she begins looking through Spencer’s technological footprint. There’s little there as well, but it’s familiar. Research he’s published, theses he wrote when he received his three infamous doctorates. Then, she cross references her Spencer footprint with the name “Jo”. Nothing of interest. She tries Joanne, Joanna, Jolene, Jocelyn, anything she can think, and receives much the same. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The twinkling lights are a soft lavender and the unicorn on her desk bobbles almost ominously. “I'm just protecting him,” she says again into the stale office air as she finally, finally decides to check Spencer’s financial records. The last month is expectedly stale. “Come on, Penelope, stop stalking him. You can just ask him to talk to this girl when he comes back to work,” she tells herself, mouse hovering over the exit button. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her eyes widen. “What on Gallifrey is that?” A payment for an apartment in Las Vegas. Scrolling back, Garcia sees it goes back years. “What are you doing, bunny boy?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The apartment is listed as being rented out to a Josephine Dalca, no other occupants listed.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She searches Spencer again for the name Josephine Dalca. The searches are as dry as the previous ones. Spencer, as far as she’s concerned, has never met a Josephine Dalca. They didn’t go to the same schools, never worked anywhere together, have never attended the same class at a library. The closest they get is being from Las Vegas.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m going about this all wrong,” Penelope says, resting her forehead in her hands. “I need to know her.” Searching for Josephine Dalca, she yields many more results. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her social medias are adult-boring, small slice of life snippets, daily musings and meme reposts. Garcia is taken aback at just how normal she is. Her mind races through reasons why Spencer would ignore this woman, have such regular communication that two weeks is surprising, taking pit stops to run an imaginary scenario. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Elias and I have perfected the art of cake decorating,” Garcia reads from her Facebook page. Fitted with the post is a photo of a leaning cake covered in icing dotted with dark crumbs. She continues, “Elias’s day program just lost funding...” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A few pages down, she sees it. Josephine “Jo” Dalca, a woman with the tiredest grinning eyes pictured next to a young man looking off to the side, smile goofy but brimming with delight, and the spitting image of Spencer Reid.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i realized that i didn't write rossi into this and i'm not gonna apologize for that. i also didnt realize that it being when maeve dies that means that blake is here and not emily so i had to edit all my chapters to reflect that.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. tell-tale diary pages</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The whole thing comes together rather quickly. They make an extra trip to the library to print the bus and train routes. Elias packs first, throwing his favorite shirts in a ball at the bottom of his backpack. With a small amount of encouragement and redirection from Jo, he stuffs the rest of his backpack with any books (non-library, just in case) he might want, his headphones, and anything that might alleviate the overwhelming newness of a trip lacking all sorts of structure. She packs clothes for the two of them in the suitcase from her room, one she knows she must’ve seen her mother use maybe 20 years ago. Her own backpack is filled to the brim with as many emergency items as she can think of. The first-aid kit the pair has owned since probably 2006, all of the cash Josephine has made in tips in the last three months, a pocket knife she asked Spencer for before the first aid kit. Even so, the pit in the bottom of her stomach is enough to make her vomit.</p>
<p>	The trip itself is unending, nearly. Two buses make the first day and a half. Elias stretches out across their two seats, resting his skinny upper half on Jo’s lap. Jo doesn’t mind, really, and is glad he sleeps much of their bus rides. The cold of the window gets her through most of the bumpy ride. After, they had two long train rides, about a day each, and finally a short zip that would take them the rest of the way into Quantico, Virginia.</p>
<p>	It’s on the second train that Elias begins to have an issue. The last two days had been exhausting enough that he was contented to tell Jo all about every MTV segment that has ever existed. On the third day, this is not the case. Soon after their transfer, once they’ve settled into the seats as far away from others as possible, Jo has stocked Elias with junk food snacks they bought at a gas station near their train, and slipped his headphones with an audiobook on, something snaps.</p>
<p>	Elias can’t possibly focus on anything at this exact moment. The list of things he was supposed to have done is getting longer by the second and he can’t imagine what’s happening if he’s not sitting in his booth at this exact moment reading. He worries who will be missing him, who he might be missing. He worries about Spencer. He worries why Jo seems so worried. All of these can’t possibly be the most important thing to worry about but he can’t seem to sort out which should get the most of his attention. Plus, he can hear the wheels of the train squeak along their tracks, can feel the loose threads of the dirty train seats and what must be decades of germs waiting to climb into his mouth and eyelids. And if he stops pressing his hands into his eye sockets for a second he might be able to think how to tell Jo he needs help but if he stops he won’t be able to quiet everything else that’s overwhelming him and he doesn’t know that he can do that.</p>
<p>	So, he keeps his palms pressed firmly into his eyes, bites his tongue. The pain is an easy distraction and gains him the time to pull his device into his lap. </p>
<p>	“What’s up, Elias? What do you need?” Jo says, turned to shield Elias from the seats of the train that must have filled in only the latest stop. She moves her hand to his back, starting to rub small circles, but he shrugs her off.</p>
<p>	“Scared,” his device announces. </p>
<p>	“That’s an okay way to feel right now. We’re doing something scary. I’m a bit scared, too,” Jo says softly. “Do you want to be specific about what you’re scared of?”</p>
<p>	Elias’s breathing slows a little, his focus turning to clicking through the pages of words he has in his voice device. “I need,” he says, pausing to scroll through and finish his sentence. “Help. I need help.”</p>
<p>	Jo almost wishes it was one of those eery, robotic voices. Pushing the thought away, she rifles through Elias’s backpack. “What can I do to help you? Do you want a distraction or do you want to talk about it?” </p>
<p>	“Help,” is all Elias responds. His hands fly back to cover his eyes once again. </p>
<p>	“Okay, Eli.” Jo pulls a worn, well-read book out of the backpack. “Can we read? This is a favorite of mine.”</p>
<p>	Elias draws his hands down and reads the cover with wide, watery eyes. He looks to Jo and then points at the cover. </p>
<p>	“We haven’t pulled this one out in a while, kid,” Jo comments, opening to the first page.</p>
<p>	“To Elias, the smartest kid I know. Happy 18th birthday. Love, Spencer,” Elias reads. </p>
<p>	And while he reads aloud on a little train speeding to a Virginia that is not expecting them, back in Las Vegas their phone is ringing. While they are nearly halfway through with their journey, an anxious Penelope Garcia is weaving a winding and confusing explanation on their answering machine.</p>
<p>--- </p>
<p>	Jennifer Jareau awakes to a foot in her face. This, while an unfortunate situation, is not one she is unused to. Henry has mostly grown out of bed sharing but not sleep sweating, so thankfully he prefers to sweat profusely under his own sheets. Still, somewhere in the night Henry had wormed his little, warm body between her and Will, and come morning this is where she found him. Though offensive, the scene reminds her that one day, maybe one soon, she won’t see her family like this again. Little feet will become big and Henry will grow to find his mother’s affection to be an embarrassing reminder of being young.</p>
<p>	Her coffee drips endlessly into her too-small cup. The milk sloshes onto the counter when she goes to pour it. When finally, the top to her sugar clatters from countertop to floor, bringing with it an excess of sugar into her coffee, she decides to stop at a shop and get some to go. All that, plus the call of the overly-sweet, chocolate confection she can get to go with it is more than convincing.</p>
<p>	JJ tucks the pain au chocolat she buys into her purse, wrapped safely in parchment and napkins. Pulling her purse back up on her arm, she sips her coffee slowly and thoughtfully from the safety of her car. It slips down her throat like that first sip of water after recess, where you can feel it all the way down. It feels nice to think about something that isn’t the mess she and her team deal with. Even if that thing is ice cubes.</p>
<p>	The reverie is short lived when she catches the time from her phone screen. She begrudgingly leaves the car and makes her slow walk into the FBI building.</p>
<p>	“Excuse me.” She hears the voice but she doesn’t assume it applies to her. “Excuse me, ma’am.” This time, she turns. In front of her is a woman, probably her own age, hands clasped tightly with a man turned away from the interaction. They look tired, are holding bags that indicate travel. JJ doesn’t answer, just greets the speaker with a look of confusion. Her hand drifts to her hip.</p>
<p>	The woman attempts to smile, but JJ can see the stress on her face still. “You’re Agent Jareau, right? I saw your picture.”</p>
<p>	“Yes, I am.” JJ’s hand stays firm on her hip.</p>
<p>	“Do you know Spencer Reid? He works here.”</p>
<p>	Of all the things she thought she might have been stopped about, that surprises her. “What is this about?” she asks, words a little quicker than she likes them to be when she speaks to a profiler. </p>
<p>	“You do know him.”</p>
<p>	JJ purses her lips, breathing through her nose. She narrows her eyes at the woman, taking in the sight of her. She notices the knicks on her lips, tiny dot of blood still sitting on them from biting. She notices the way the roots of her hair, thin and wavy, lay limply, covered in an oil the woman has yet to find time to wash away. She notices the way she grips this man’s wrist, the way he pulls away to look at the pedestrians behind them. Decidedly not a threat, she asks, “What is this about?”</p>
<p>	The woman drops the hand that grips tightly to her accompaniment to swing her backpack around to the front and shuffles through for something among its cluttered compartments. JJ rethinks her threat assessment, just briefly, until she emerges with a wallet. The woman brandishes her ID, Nevada issue, in a nervous show. “My name is Jo. This is Elias,” she says, nodding her head behind her to the man. “We really need to get in contact with Spencer.”</p>
<p>	JJ sputters. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t just--”</p>
<p>	“We can call Spencer?” She is cut off by who the woman referred to as Elias. He speaks loudly, but facing no one at all. The anxiety in his voice would be obvious to anyone, profiler or not.</p>
<p>	“This is his brother.”</p>
<p>	JJ smiles, a shitty disguise for complete confusion. “He doesn’t…” But the man is turning to her and there’s no way he isn’t Spencer’s dead spit. </p>
<p>	Elias looks at her, only for a few seconds, before pulling back to stand behind Jo.</p>
<p>	“Can we…”</p>
<p>	“Yeah, let’s go inside.”</p>
<p>	While the entire team wants to join, it ends up being just Hotch, JJ, Jo and Elias who gather quickly in the round-table room. Elias makes his way to a seat rather unceremoniously, Jo stands behind him, stuck only on Elias. She watches his footfalls in case they get too close, watches his body as he gets excited, rocking with his steps. It’s been a long time since she’s studied him like this, like she has to mitigate the provocations of the world to keep her boy from overloading. </p>
<p>	JJ watches Hotch more so than their guests. She looks to see how long his eyes stay on Elias, how angry or confused or just upset his face is. She is praying for a guide to how she should be behaving in a moment like this. Once the door is shut behind them, he stands in front of their new guests, Eli in a chair and Jo holding tightly to its back, and JJ takes the space next to him.</p>
<p>	“We appreciate your concern for Dr. Reid’s absence. Unfortunately, he is not at work and will be out of work for a few more weeks,” he begins, testing the waters.</p>
<p>	Jo sighs. “I understand it’s unprofessional to show up at his job and ambush someone on the street. It’s far, far more of a problem on our part, I promise. But we didn’t have another option.”</p>
<p>	JJ glances to Hotch again. “We’re overdue for a visit, don’t you think? Garcia and Blake can see if he’s up to entertaining.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	How long has the sink been dripping? Spencer can’t tell if it’s new or if it’s a soft, repetitive sound that he’s grown used to. If he could connect his ears to his brain, he’d be able to estimate how much water he’s wasted depending on how long it's been dripping, but he can’t make the connection. He feels like he’s wading through water as he lifts his hand to run it over his face. They’re wet, too, like his faucet. He bites his tongue, trying to figure out why that could be, but he doesn’t get particularly far. It’s now that he notices he tastes blood, just a little. </p>
<p>	Spencer pulls himself up with the arm of his couch. His fingers find purchase and his arms hold steady but his feet can’t hold him and he slips back to the ground. He skitters around his dirty floor. Some part of him wonders when the last time he swept was. Most of the rest of him was wondering why he felt so horrible. With a lot of support, Spencer leans himself against the back of his couch. He begins to take account of his body and mind.</p>
<p>	Slow heartbeat. Headache. He probably rolled his ankle when he fell. He is cold. Shallow breathing. He feels listless. Angry. Confused. He can’t really combine these symptoms into something that explains them, can’t make sense of the emotions. He knows, underneath, what’s going on, but the logical part wants to seek some sort of explanation that he already has. Maybe it’s the emotional. He’s too tired of this to try to sort through it. </p>
<p>	His rugs are knotted up together. There is vomit on his floor, a few feet away from his toes. He must’ve slept roughly, kicking restless legs out, because it is not an undisturbed pile. Biting back another bout of vomit, Spencer ignores the urge to look at his legs. Instead, he continues to survey his apartment. The kitchen is clean, sparkling except for a bag of bread never returned to its box. It doesn’t really take the confirmation, not completely, but when Spencer finally sees the small, clear vial splayed out on his table, the needle on the ground beside it, he understands. He bites his tongue sharp enough to draw blood again and he smiles at the way it tastes. Tears, fat and wobbly like they’ve been sitting there for ages, thread down his sullen cheeks. Hand fly to hit at his legs, a weak and pathetic display of the anger and disdain for himself he feels. There is too much to think about, too many huge thoughts cramming themselves into the small workspace available within his brain. This is why he doesn’t notice how draining it is just to lift his arm to strike himself. This is why it barely occurs to him that he is slipping down from his propped up position, and he doesn’t even notice when his heels hit the pile of vomit they had sat in front of. Only when he is on the ground completely, eyes rolling closed, does he realize there is an issue.</p>
<p>	Much like when he woke up, his ears are lightyears away from his brain when Penelope and Blake come crashing into his apartment. The door is open, left that way in the haze of a drug buying expedition, but they clatter inside with anxiously uncareful bodies. Spencer doesn’t register.</p>
<p>	“Spencer?” Alex asks, crouching next to him, ear close to his mouth. “He’s breathing,” she says, “Garcia, call 911.” Garcia nods, fingers frantic and too slow as she dials the number and sputters a plea into the receiver.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>yall my train ride research was the highlight of my writing of this entire fic. im writin ch 7 rn and nothing compares. let me know what yall think!! im a lil unsure of this one.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. old soul who falls down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hotch hangs up his phone with no farewell. “Josephine,” he says, gesturing towards the door with his head. Jo glances at Eli, who sits jittery in his chair. He soaks in the environment, content. She follows Agent Hotchner just outside the room. Jennifer sees the concern in her unit chief’s face and comes as well. “Our agents went to Reid’s house to check on him. When they arrived they found him on the ground and evidence of drug use. He is currently on the way to the hospital. We can take you and Elias with us to go see him.”</p>
<p>“He’s using again?” Jo wrings her hands together, stepping back from the group in surprise. </p>
<p>“Not that we knew of,” Hotch admits.</p>
<p>“I just, uh, need to get Eli going. Just a second,” Jo says, avoiding the stares of either of them. Hotch nods, motioning towards the door again with his arm. She takes a shaky breath and leads the two agents back into the conference room. </p>
<p>Jo, while used to judging eyes, knows immediately that the judging stare of Spencer’s coworkers is fundamentally different. She feels them on her as she settles next to Eli, hands extended in case he wants to take one. He grabs one, holding it in a pancake. He presses the back of her left hand to his cold cheek and leans into it. One of Jo’s favorite stims. “I know, bun,” Jo whispers.</p>
<p>Elias can feel her unease. He always can. “Spencer?” He asks aloud.</p>
<p>Jo nods. “Spencer isn’t here, but Spencer’s boss sent some of his friends to go get him.”</p>
<p>What were once wild and excited eyes narrow into confused and nervous ones. Elias chews on his cheek, lips pressed together. “Where is he?” he eventually says. </p>
<p>Jo, much like JJ to her gun, floats her hand over her backpack, unsure of what could be helpful but ready to supply Elias with anything he needs to get through the next few minutes. Only a few minutes, then a few minutes, then a few more. “We’re going to go see him.”</p>
<p>Elias nods. His eyes screw shut, trying to connect words to mouth. When he comes up dry, he pulls up his device, scrolling through the folders to form the sentence he wants to say. “I don’t understand.” Jo fights back tears. She’s taken care of Eli for 10 years, done it on her own for 8, and she has never had to resort to lying to him. She really, really doesn’t want to start now. </p>
<p>Jo feels a presence beside her. “Hi Elias, my name is Jennifer. My friends like to call me JJ. Your brother is one of my best friends.” JJ kneels down in front of Elias’s chair. </p>
<p>“JJ,” Elias repeats. “Hi, JJ.”</p>
<p>JJ smiles, large, genuine. “Your brother’s having a hard time right now. Someone he loves has passed away and it makes him very sad. Right now, he’s in the hospital because he’s been hurt. Would you like to come visit him there?”</p>
<p>Teeth come down hard on cheeks again as Elias struggles to fit his thoughts into something to respond. He turns to his speech device again, moving slowly to form his sentence. “I want to see Spencer,” it finally says. It isn’t lost on JJ that the voice is Spencer’s.</p>
<p>“Okay.” She pushes on her knees to stand. “You guys can ride with me.”</p>
<p>Jo observes, just observes, biting her own lip. How could Spencer just not tell her someone died? Someone died and she doesn’t even fucking know who it is. If she did, would she recognize the name? She tries to remember the messages she’s left on his answering machine. Would she have said the same things if she knew? Maybe. But that’s besides the point. Historically, Spencer might have been a little shady about Quantico, but he would tell Jo about his personal life. She always just thought he liked to keep work separate. Lately, though, it’s looking more like a double life. One she and Elias are unwelcome in.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Derek has never been sure what it is, but something about hospitals makes his skin feel chalky. Like the air coats him with something so thin it's not visible to the naked eye, but it covers every inch of his skin. When his fingers slip over his sweaty forehead, they stick. When they scratch his neck uncomfortably, they glide. It surrounds his tongue, weighing it down like cornstarch water mixture. Thickens whatever it is he has to say. He sits in the waiting room, silent. </p>
<p>There is a group gathering around him but he doesn’t take it in. Garcia lays a soft hand on his shoulder and he wonders if she can feel it too. He doesn’t look at her yet. If he does, he’ll see that she is as much of a mess as he is. And he’ll have to be here for her. As much as he loves her, loves all of the softness and sweetness and concern that makes her who she is, for just a few more minutes he wants to only think about himself.</p>
<p>5, 6 years ago he had been ready for it. 4 years ago he was sure he wouldn’t have been surprised, if not completely prepared. 3, he can imagine himself standing strong next to Spencer and seeing him through this. Somewhere in the years since, when the phone call never came that his preparedness slipped through the cracks and now he finds he is wordless in the face of this bout of addiction.</p>
<p>	“Baby girl,” Derek says, “How did we miss this?”</p>
<p>	Penelope only looks at him, not in his eyes but around them, and pats his thigh. “We were trying to give him space.” When she smiles, he sees tears slip around her lashes.</p>
<p>	Their moment is not allotted any more time. The doors are thrown open, stopper at the bottom thunking gingerly. In crashes a young man, then a woman, then finally someone he recognizes as JJ. The man pulls out of the grasp of the woman, shouting.</p>
<p>	“Eli, we can’t need to wait. Spencer isn’t ready for us,” the woman says, face pleading for help. </p>
<p>	JJ behind them strokes her arm gently, voice smooth and soft. “It’s okay, Jo, the nurses said he’ll take visitors now. You guys go.”</p>
<p>	The woman thanks JJ, and hurries to catch up to the man already walking into the hallway. JJ nods, takes a seat near Derek, and buries her face in her hands. Derek’s eyes dart from face to face, looking for someone to match the confusion he has.</p>
<p>	Only when the small waiting room is packed with their team does anyone speak about it. “So, is someone gonna tell me who that was busting down the door to go and visit the kid in there?” Derek asks.</p>
<p>	“That’s his brother.”</p>
<p>	Derek doesn’t try to contain the anger that flashes over his face. “He’s got a brother?”</p>
<p>	“And his brother’s caretaker,” Blake finishes. She had heard the entire sordid tale from Garcia on their ride to and from Spencer’s.</p>
<p>	The pieces fit together like shattered pottery but Derek’s hands are still slipping, slipping. “What, he’s hiding his brother from us because he’s… Does he think we’d care?”</p>
<p>	“He’s never been one to share things,” JJ says.</p>
<p>	“But a whole brother? Come on, JJ.”</p>
<p>	No one has a competent response for that. If Hotch or JJ or even Penelope were to think on it past the surface level of concern, they knew that they would feel the acidic anger lick at their esophagus and their brains would go on autopilot. If they wanted to, all they would have was outrage.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	If Spencer wasn’t sure about the whole drug thing before, he is absolutely certain he is strung out beyond belief when he sees Elias and Jo walk through the hospital door. </p>
<p>	And then he realizes that the hospital means there’s no possible way he is still on drugs. And he remembers the past few weeks of missed calls and voicemails he hasn’t listened to but he knows exactly what they say because he knows Jo enough to know the tinge of her voice when she swears with a throat full of tears. He remembers the rent he didn’t even consider paying, the brother he didn’t want to talk to, the old friend he’d abandoned with a responsibility that was his. </p>
<p>	But he doesn’t have time to punish himself for those transgressions because his brother is climbing onto the shaky hospital bed and surrounding him with a hug that Spencer’s eidetic memory could never do justice to. “Hey, Eli,” he whispers, wet eyes buried in his brother’s shoulder.</p>
<p>	The hug lasts long enough that he looks up to Jo, hoping that profiling skills do him well enough that he can predict the next thing to come out of her mouth. He is unlucky, she doesn’t make eye contact with him, arms crossed and focused on a bag that Eli has laid on the floor in his journey towards Spencer.</p>
<p>	When Elias pulls off, his mouth is tight, lips between teeth. “Where is your voice?” Spencer says, voice low to keep from working himself up.</p>
<p>	Eli’s face softens, and he begins to work out what it is he wants to say. Finally, his device says, “Are you okay?”</p>
<p>	Spencer sputters a smile. His clouded, foggy brain can’t remember why it was that he decided to move so far away from his brother. “I’m okay now.”</p>
<p>	Jo moves to sit in a chair that looks like it might’ve been in this hospital room when Eli was born. As much as she wants to let them be, she interjects. “Someone died?”</p>
<p>	At least he can be certain that Jo will never baby him. “Yeah. Her name was Maeve. She was…”</p>
<p>	“You had a girlfriend? Oh my god, Spence, you really left us out of the loop.” Her words are lilting like a joke but Spencer recognizes the bite of offense.</p>
<p>	He looks to Elias. “She wanted to meet you.” And to Jo. “You, too.” He pauses. “I told her about how you know everything there is to know about Harry Houdini.”</p>
<p>	“His real name is Erik Weisz,” Eli comments, more to the floor than his companions.</p>
<p>	Spencer’s shiny eyes meet Jo’s. “And I told her how you’re funny even when I don’t get the jokes.”</p>
<p>	“How long have you been doing drugs again?” The directness is almost comforting, knowing his conversations with his coworkers will be far more meandering.</p>
<p>	He opens his mouth to respond, but realizes he isn’t really sure what to say. </p>
<p>	“Those people out there really love you. That JJ… She’s itching to get in here,” Jo says, standing. “Eli, do you want to go find something for Spencer to eat?”</p>
<p>	Elias rises from the bed. “Spencer doesn’t like eggplant, hot sauce and alcohol,” he says.</p>
<p>	Spencer lays a heavy hand on his little brother’s shoulder. “Thanks, Eli.” He doesn’t watch their hurried footsteps out of the door.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	Aaron Hotchner decides immediately to ignore the hands wiping tears from his subordinate’s eyes. Alex Blake decides to follow suit. She takes the seat that Jo has left vacated, while he stands at the foot of the bed. No one is particularly excited to speak, leaving the three of them staring at each other for a few unbearable moments. </p>
<p>	Finally, Hotch clears his throat. “You’ve already been approved for an additional 4 weeks of absence. You will not be required to complete a rehabilitation program but we can arrange one,” he says.</p>
<p>	Blake rests a hand on Spencer’s arm, trying to physically bridge a gap she can’t emotionally. “You should think about it, Spencer. Or at least therapy.”</p>
<p>	Spencer nods. “I will,” he says to her. She scans his face, up and down, up and down.</p>
<p>	Hotch taps a toe. “Reid,” he begins, “it’s not weak to need help.” Spencer, as he expected, does little in response. Hotch lets the words settle in the air a minute, hot and weighted, before continuing. “That brother of yours is a great kid.” He knows that Spencer hears what he had meant to say. You could have told us, he means, we wouldn’t have thought less of you.</p>
<p>	“He’s just like you,” Alex says. </p>
<p>	Spencer laughs. “That’s what my mom always said.”</p>
<p>	Silence settles over them, just a bit lighter this time. When it shows no sign of stopping, Hotch speaks again. “You should be discharged today. We will see you then.”</p>
<p>	Blake takes the hint and begins for the door. “I don’t think we can keep Garcia out of here any longer.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hey friends!! i recently came back to tumblr so if yall are on there please hit me up!! my url is bbbillddenbrough !!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. ghost of the ages</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Spencer and Jo, picking up where they left off, argued almost immediately about where they would be staying. Jo had already bought a hotel room, had already prepared Elias to stay. Spencer argued that he had the space in his apartment and Elias would take the change well. Garcia had pitched in that Spencer could use the company.</p>
<p>	Spencer won out. The three of them ride back to Spencer’s apartment in Garcia’s car. Elias is enthralled by it, the decorations she has within. It’s difficult to get him out.</p>
<p>	He is similarly enthralled by Spencer’s apartment. They push the door open loudly, all of them struggling to hold onto something bulky. Elias drops everything immediately, leaving Spencer and Jo to step around his backpack in the doorway. Spencer’s muscles have taken on their full role again, and he moves with his usual amount of awkwardness. He leads them to his guest room, dragging Elias’s discarded bag with them. </p>
<p>	“I can take the couch so Eli can have mine,” he says. </p>
<p>	Jo scoffs. “You just got out of the hospital. I’ll take the couch.” He doesn’t respond. </p>
<p>	Elias has situated himself on the couch, picking through a pile of books he has pulled down from Spencer’s shelves. One, Jo notices, is the same as one they have at home. None, notably, are about Houdini. Or MTV, but that one makes more sense.</p>
<p>	“No!”</p>
<p>Both Elias and Jo freeze. Tears prick up at the edges of Eli’s eyes. In his hands is a copy of The Narrative of John Smith.</p>
<p>	“Not that book, Eli.” Spencer finishes. </p>
<p>	Elias chews on air for a moment, mouth struggling to form syllables. “I’m sorry,” he says eventually, using his device.</p>
<p>	Spencer removes the book from his brother’s hand, sitting next to him. Spencer resembles his brother in this moment, mouth closed and biting the words that he can’t sort out. “I’m sorry, Eli,” is all he ends up saying. </p>
<p>	Jo takes note, and decides to say nothing. Instead, she pulls a deck of cards from her pocket, one that she had taken from Eli’s emergency bag, holding them up between two fingers. “Old times?”</p>
<p>	The three of them fall into comfortable spots on Spencer’s couch and chairs, having played many games of Old Maid. Jo opens the box and spills the cards out on the table. She begins to swirl the cards around in a pile.</p>
<p>	“Woah, woah, woah,” Spencer says. “How are you still shuffling like that? You’re from Las Vegas.”</p>
<p>	“You never taught me the right way, so really it’s your fault. You do it.” She pushes the pile across the table, towards Spencer who sits in the chair opposite them. </p>
<p>“Yes he did,” Eli comments. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jo rolls her eyes. “Come on, Eli, you’re supposed to be on my side.” But, really, she knows he’s all about Spence.</p>
<p>It feels so similar, so repetitive and simple that Spencer doesn’t think of Maeve, doesn’t think of the way that he had laid across this very floor only a day or two ago. Jo doesn’t think of the list of things that are probably going wrong because they don’t have her attention at the moment and the nagging voice in her brain that says that Spencer hid from them for a reason. Elias doesn’t think of the panic he felt deep in his stomach that his brother had been missing, of the nerves that don’t settle even now because he isn’t quite sure what he’s going to be doing next. </p>
<p>	Until Elias loses. </p>
<p>	Elias loses and he throws the cards down on the floor. He is not a sore loser, he understands it’s a game but coping with this is not on his list of things he can do right now. He groans and stands, hands flying to wrap around his torso and tap at opposite sides. Jo and Spencer follow suit, with Jo moving quickly to stand in front of him and Spencer falling back. While Elias paces, Jo rubs her hands up his upper arms, hoping to provide a grounding pressure. </p>
<p>	“Dude, I understand we’ve been having a really emotional few days, but you know this is not how we cope with losing a game. Let’s take a deep breath and then we can communicate emotions.” </p>
<p>	“No!” Elias says.</p>
<p>	“Jo, let me help--” Spencer’s interjection is cut off by Jo whipping around to make eye contact with him.</p>
<p>	“I’ve got it, Spencer.”</p>
<p>	He inches forward. “Eli, it’s okay.”</p>
<p>	“Spencer, I told you it’s fine. I can handle it.” Jo’s attention returns to Elias. He has escalated steadily, from rocking and pacing to hitting the soft flesh at the tops of his thighs. He groans again, bubbly throat trying to convey something. She pulls his hands up and holds them firm in her own. “Elias, you can stim but you can’t hurt yourself.” She bites her tongue thinking of the bruises that have been able to yellow recently and how they never heal for long.</p>
<p>	Spencer holds Elias’s speech device out to them. Jo holds back a comment. </p>
<p>	Elias doesn’t look at it, continuing to struggle against Jo’s grip. She loosens it hoping that he will reach for his device, but he only shoves it away. </p>
<p>	“If you let us know what you’re feeling, we can help,” Spencer says. </p>
<p>	Somewhere, Jo registers that Spencer is trying to help. Somewhere, she can remember the many, many meltdowns the two of them have deescalated and the way they had once been a smooth operating machine. At the front of her brain, however, there is an explosion, and she can’t find the spot that holds kindness towards her once best friend. “You want to know what he’s feeling? Now you want to know what he’s feeling?” She and Elias sink to the ground and she swings a leg around so she can hold him from behind. He rocks against her chest, arm crossed comfortably across his own. He almost deflates, heaving breaths in. Jo continues. “You didn’t care how he was feeling when you disappeared for weeks. You didn’t care how he was feeling when you stopped visiting for fucking years before that. You really didn’t care how he was feeling when you moved 2,000 miles and left us behind.”</p>
<p>Spencer opens his mouth to answer but words don’t come out.  Instead, he backs away, into his bedroom, and leaves the two of them on the floor.</p>
<p>Jo wiggles around to face Elias. He hugs her, pulling tightly to her, and sobs. Eventually, eventually, she does the same.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	By the time Spencer emerges in search of a book and a cup of coffee, the two he had left have abandoned the living room. He hears noise from his guest room, the buzzy echoes of an MTV host, and sighs relief. He steps over the spatter of cards on his floor and makes his way to the kitchen.</p>
<p>	He leans against the counter and he lets his water boil. The soft hissing noise his kettle lets out used to bother him, used to drive him crazy to the point where he would boil water in a pan. He had deconstructed the kettle, wrestled the small rubber stopper off with a screwdriver he had never used before this incident. When he boiled water afterwards, the hissing was nearly gone. Gone enough that now, as he waits for his water to heat up, it doesn’t exacerbate the headache that he’s had since his release from the hospital. He’s sure if he thinks back he could date the headache back further. Thinking back is something he is trying to refrain from doing as of late. </p>
<p>	But there’s something about silence that lets a brain go rogue. Spencer’s brain, specifically, has never been very well controlled, so rogue is almost first nature. It’s surely second, at least. With Maeve, he wouldn’t be in this situation, but if he had been, she would’ve seen him through it. She would’ve said something so smart about Jo and known just what she was feeling because to Maeve, women were simple, simple things. They were big messy puddles of string to Spencer. She would have reminded him of Elias as a child, when his eyes were the biggest thing on his face and they would just look around at everything all the time. </p>
<p>	That rogue brain sits there for a minute. Way back when Elias hadn’t yet spoken a word. His dad was already gone, not even sticking around to see his new child see age 6. Their mom had a lot of really good days when Elias was young. She would cover them in her thick duvet in the early mornings, her favorite books already strewn throughout the bed, and have them choose which ones they wanted to hear. Sometimes, when he got a little older, Elias would repeat the phrases that sounded especially nice. And then Spencer would. And then mom would, until it was a chorus of laughter and repetition. </p>
<p>	After he had mom committed, and Jo had pretty much moved in, they had many very similar mornings. If Spencer were to go back through them, moment by moment, they would play like two movie scenes, one which is paying homage to the other. He wonders what scenes his life now resembles.</p>
<p>	He is distracted enough that without the dizzying hiss of the kettle, he doesn’t realize the water has come to a boil. He scoops coffee grounds into his press, pours water a bit sloppily in, and lets it sit. His hips find their comfortable spot leaning against the counter again. He replays the argument he and Jo had had. He wonders if he should have done more, done less, known better how to help. </p>
<p>	And then he depresses the press, pours his cup of coffee, shovels sugar in, and tops it off with a splash of milk. When the still hot coffee hits his tongue, the rush of pain is enough to occupy his neurons for a moment.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	Elias used to be the best at running. He had joined the track team in high school, was able to stay in it until he was 21. Jo or Spencer would go to every practice, every meet. The sports director was always excited to see the Reid brothers, having viewed Spencer with a fondness in his days of basketball coaching. On school breaks or over the summer, Elias would rise early and shove his brother awake as well. Spencer wasn’t exactly a late sleeper, but he never seemed to be awake when Elias wanted him to be. The two of them would make the walk to the park, where Elias would run the worn-dirt paths of other runners, and Spencer would read, or complete his schoolwork, or sometimes just watch. On the best, best days, they could convince their mother to make the trip with them, and it would become a picnic.</p>
<p>When she had started to have all bad days all the time, Jo had been around almost all the time. At first, Jo would only pop in for a few hours after Elias got out of school. Spencer had far too many hours of classes, and they would extend until late afternoon, but his doctorates weren’t going to come without the class hours, no matter how much of the material he had learned already. Elias and Jo would cook box mac and cheese and mix in frozen peas to share between the three. They would put heaping spoonfuls in a bowl, cover it with saran wrap and put it in the microwave to save for Spencer. The agreement was supposed to be that Jo would take care of Elias if Spencer drove her to her classes. It was an agreement that was supposed to be short-lived, driven by necessity on both sides. <br/>But there’s something to be said about necessity. It created an invention of a semblance of family between the three Reids and one Dalca that every single one of them had been lacking before that. Short-lived, I’m-only-doing-this-because-I-have-to became I love this and I could live like this. </p>
<p>Elias is seriously considering running again, after that. Running past Jo, through Spencer’s uncomfortably cluttered apartment, down the complex stairs and out. And out and out and out. He doesn’t know where, doesn’t even consider that as part of the plan. All he is sure of is that something about sitting here, in Spencer’s guest bedroom, even if MTV is on, is horrifically wrong and he needs to be out of here.</p>
<p>Without a word, he gets up. He wrestles open the sticky door, unsure if it was push or pull but getting there eventually, and follows noise to find Spencer in the kitchen. He ignores Jo as he follows him out.</p>
<p>“We can go running?”</p>
<p>Spencer cocks his head. “I thought you didn’t run anymore.”</p>
<p>Elias rolls his eyes. “We can go running?”</p>
<p>Jo only watches this encounter. “Yeah, we can go running,” Spencer says. His eyes dart to Jo, not for permission, obviously, because he doesn’t need that, but for confirmation. When her face is only flat, he pauses. “I can call Garcia and see if she can take you out for coffee. Or you can stay here.”</p>
<p>Not that Jo would ever tell you it, but she’s a little grateful to be given an out. Just for a few hours. “Yeah. Call Garcia.” There’s a space where both of them mean to be saying “sorry” but neither of them do. They both hear it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>let me know what yall think!! hit me up on tumblr too!! bbbillddenbrough</p>
<p>remember that ACAB and BLM</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. foot in the door</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If you couldn’t already tell, Spencer does not have a propensity for physical exertion. In the spreadsheet of traits that come from mother and father, both he and Elias received their love of books from Diana, and Elias received some level of interest in sports from William. If you were to ask Spencer what it was that he received from William, he would tell you it’s a Y chromosome.  </p>
<p>	They fall back into a routine once they arrive at the park that Spencer used to play chess at. It’s not the best park in the area, but it’s the one he and Blake had gone to on that day a few weeks ago. Before he can stop himself, Spencer keeps finding himself pushing into things like this like a bruise. It’s a comfortable discomfort. And he can’t help the thought that if he always has a little tinge of pain, he can’t forget. It would be a disservice to forget.</p>
<p>	Elias bounds around the well established track, stopping each time he passes Spencer to sip from a water bottle and flash a goofy grin. Spencer brought a book but it sits idly in his lap. Instead, he looks. In the field far behind Elias, three people have laid out a blanket. The youngest, a girl, maybe 10, is sprawled across it. She is barefoot, laughing madly. Two adults stand over her, bodies braced like they’re scolding, but faces light. Closer to him, on a bench at the edge of a path, a couple of teenagers sit uncomfortably close. For both Spencer and each other. The girl picks at her fingernails and the boy bites at his and they only stare at each other. Spencer is spacing his glances out, but he’s almost certain they never say a word to each other.	</p>
<p>	Spencer jumps in surprise when a figure weighs down the opposite end of the bench. He can’t hide the confusion on his face when he turns to find JJ next to him. “Garcia told me where to find you guys.”</p>
<p>	Spencer turns back to his brother. He gestures with a tilt of the head. “See how his heels hit the ground when he runs?” JJ nods. “He used to only run on his tiptoes. He was on the track team in high school and he ran every race on his tiptoes.” Something pulls his face back towards JJ. Maybe it’s a desire to not look at Eli anymore. Even so, he avoids her eyes. “I don’t know when he stopped doing that.”</p>
<p>	“He’s only a few years younger than you, right?”</p>
<p>	“Six.”</p>
<p>A heavy-breathing Elias collapses on the bench next to him. “You could run a marathon in 2 hours, bun,” Elias says.</p>
<p>	He smiles. After his meets, when both Spencer and Jo were there, Jo would say that. And Spencer would respond the same way, each time. “Only 4% of male runners finish in under 3 hours,” Spencer answers. </p>
<p>	Only after their interaction does Elias notice the woman sitting on his other side. “JJ,” he says matter-of-factly. She grins and nods. He turns back to Spencer expectantly. He bounces slightly in the seat.</p>
<p>	“Let’s just rest here for a minute, Eli.”</p>
<p>	“Eli, you live in Las Vegas?” JJ says, hoping to engage him.</p>
<p>	“I live at 165 Millhouse St. apartment 4e,” Elias says. </p>
<p>	JJ looks to Spencer before laughing a little. “I will keep that in mind,” she says. “What do you and Jo like to do?”</p>
<p>	“Jo likes to work and I like to read library books while she works.”</p>
<p>	JJ watches Spencer’s face contort. He’s never been very good at lying. “She brings you to work with her?”</p>
<p>	“I like the customers and Boss Lennie likes me,” Elias says, pulling in at Spencer’s tone. He speaks to the ground. “I have my own booth.”</p>
<p>	“She should have told me she was taking you to work with her.”</p>
<p>	“What’s the problem if she did?” JJ asks. She wouldn’t push, honest, but this is Spencer and he’s her best friend and she has so many things to be angry about that none of them even come to mind.</p>
<p>	Spencer heaves an exasperated sigh. “I just think it’s my business where my brother is spending his time.” There is a quiet moment where JJ is absolutely not saying anything at all but Spencer hears every criticism he’s ever thought about leaving his brother behind come from her mouth. He’s heard them, spit them at himself a million times in the middle of the night when his brain can’t cycle through every fun fact he’s ever read on a Snapple cap anymore. He doesn’t need to see the glint of judgement in JJ’s eyes right now.</p>
<p>	“Eli, get your device. We’re gonna go home now.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	Jo prides herself on being separated. She loves Eli, loves her job, but those are essentially the only two pieces that she has to a puzzle she’s supposed to be putting together. She had stopped trying long before Elias or Spencer came around.</p>
<p>	So when she sits across Penelope in a little coffee shop that Penelope is far, far more comfortable in, she shrinks in on herself. She picks at the threads of her sleeves. When Garcia leaves to carry their coffees from the counter to the table, she lets out a shaky breath and curses herself for agreeing to go out. She would have been fine if she were sulking in Spencer’s apartment.</p>
<p>	Penelope is finishing a story, one she had begun before leaving the table, when she comes back. The cups clink against spoons and the jostling causes them to spill over as she sets them down between her and Jo. Like magnets, Garcia emits a bright and pink and bubbly that pushes against Jo’s… other. “How did you guys get here?”</p>
<p>	“Three fuckin’ days of train and bus rides. It was a nightmare. Do you know what kind of people take the bus out of Las Vegas at midnight?” </p>
<p>Penelope laughs along with Jo. “Why did you take the train?”</p>
<p>	Jo is almost relieved for a soft ball question. “I can’t drive.”</p>
<p>	“Wait, really?” </p>
<p>Jo nods. “It’s a gay thing. Are you being homophobic?”</p>
<p>	Garcia’s eyes widen and she drops her spoon. It clatters into her coffee cup and splashes some up. She wipes it with a napkin and sputters, “No, I would--I couldn’t--” </p>
<p>“I’m joking. My parents weren’t there to teach me and it was in the city anyways so it wasn’t necessary.”</p>
<p>Penelope visibly calms. “Is that why you stayed with Spencer’s family so much?” </p>
<p>Jo burns her lips on the coffee, sipping eagerly. She nods. “Oh yeah. This place is good, you guys come here all the time?”</p>
<p>	“Can I ask you a nosy question?”</p>
<p>	Jo snorts. “You don’t strike me as a person who would ask first.”</p>
<p>	“You could be a profiler,” Penelope says, hand slipping into the handle of her mug.</p>
<p>	“All of you guys make that joke.”</p>
<p>	When Penelope takes a slurping sip, Jo does the same. “Why go all the way here? Why not just call Diana? Or wait for me to email back?”</p>
<p>	“I…” Jo stops. Her mouth hangs open for a second. She takes a sip.</p>
<p>	Garcia smiles. “Boy wonder isn’t the only one with stunted emotional growth.” Jo feigns an offended gasp and leans back in her chair. </p>
<p>	“What, really?” When Penelope only doubles down on a look that seems to be as stern as she can get, Jo sighs. “I’m beginning to think it was the wrong idea.”</p>
<p>	“You think Spencer getting to see his brother was a bad idea?”</p>
<p>	“No. I think coming with him was the bad idea.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	Elias sometimes gets the feeling that the world is passing too quickly. By the time he has a solid handle on where exactly he is and what exactly is going on, it’s ripped up from under him. Usually, he can cope with this. Sometimes, when he’s just acclimated to the noise and the lights and the smell of the books in the library, when he’s finally able to focus and look through the titles and select the one he wants to reread most, because lately we don’t read any new books, Jo rouses him to leave. Mostly she knows that he’s not ready yet, but sometimes she is tired and busy and there is no time. On these days, Elias is completely prepared to be strong and understanding and go home with a book that is not exactly perfect because tomorrow on the way home from work we can visit the library again.</p>
<p>	Today is absolutely not one of those days. He had handled the going to the park. He had handled the going back to Spencer’s apartment. He had handled the saying goodbye to JJ and the angry Spencer who doesn’t really have a reason that Elias understands for being angry but his face matches the one on the emotion chart at home so he must be angry. Now, he does not want to handle anymore. </p>
<p>	They have been home for a few hours. Jo has yet to return from her Garcia date, which doesn’t surprise Reid because he is aware of the person that Penelope is. He had set Elias up with a movie, something he has done a million times before, and collapsed next to him. He feels inclined to do some sort of productive work, more so than he has in weeks, but he doesn’t actually do any. He rubs a hand over his face, startled a bit at how much stubble he has gathered. His eyes drift close.</p>
<p>	Elias cares not for the state of his sleeping brother. And he shouldn’t. He is tired, he is scared, he doesn’t know this house like he knows his own and he doesn’t have Jo to sit with him and explain what’s going on. He nudges Spencer, eyes wide, before realizing he doesn’t have his voice device next to him. Spencer only stares back at him confused. Elias bites his lips, his eyes are popping out of his skull and he can only hope Spencer knows what it is he’s trying to say. Spencer sits up, but doesn’t say anything to tell Eli he understands. There are no words coming from brain to throat and absolutely no sounds coming from throat to mouth. He wings his arms wildly before connecting his fingers to a fist and his fist to his temple. Stumbling to his feet, mouth wide, Spencer scans the room for Elias’s voice. Once it’s in Eli’s hands, his eyes relax and he uses his right hand to navigate. His left still collides with his temple but Spencer knows better than to grab him. </p>
<p>	“Help,” Elias says.</p>
<p>	Spencer holds back a sigh. “I know you need help. What do you want help you with?”</p>
<p>	“I want,” he says, pausing to search. His left hand stills with the focus. “Jo. Spencer.” </p>
<p>	Now Spencer can’t withhold the sigh. “She’s not here right now. How can I help you?” When Elias only continues to bash into his skull, he reaches out. “Elias, Jo is out with a friend. I am with you right now. What can I do to help you?”</p>
<p>	A new strategy, Elias goes to his device and requests, “Tent”.</p>
<p>	Spencer sighs. “Eli, your tent is at home. We don’t have it here.”</p>
<p>Elias reaches to his temple one more time and Spencer gives up. He sits in front of Eli, eyes blank. </p>
<p>	And it scares him. Elias searches his face for some sign of expression that he can compare to the chart of emotions he has memorized but nothing is familiar. It doesn’t make sense and he needs it to make sense. He cries out. He keeps crying as Spencer reaches forward and envelopes him in long, string-bean arms. </p>
<p>	The brothers stay this way until Jo comes home. When she does, her eyes are red, matching the boys’. They don’t speak, don’t get themselves ready for bed. Jo simply climbs onto the couch with them. Spencer stares into her, through her, knowing what he is to do. She buries her face in Eli’s shoulder, hoping that Spencer won’t have the guts.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>let me know what yall think!! or yall can hit me up on tumblr @ bbbillddenbrough</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. see the skin disappears</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once, Jo was in the play at school. Well, she wasn’t in it, she was in the crew. She showed up every day, painted sets in overalls she would pack specifically to get paint on. One of the things she was responsible for, her favorite job, was tossing a shoe onto the stage at a certain point. She did it three times for three performances, and each time, she hit one of the actors.</p>
<p>	This is to say, she is very used to someone getting hurt when the other shoe falls. She’s even used to it being her. She’s felt this build up like pressure in her ears for weeks now. The Spencer-going-missing thing made her nervous, yeah, but there was this feeling of unease that had settled onto her and Elias long before that. A calm before a storm, the clicking ascent of the rollercoaster before the fall. Now, she is sitting at the top, leaning forward and hoping it will pull her down.</p>
<p>	Jo feels this way all night, rolling over on the couch and stretching her back against the arms. The moon is a fat sliver, one of the shapes she remembers learning in 6th grade but she can’t recall the name for. It’s somewhere in there, a thought that will come back to her in two days and she’ll be left wondering why she was thinking about a waxing crescent. The light in the room is dim and greenish. It makes her skin look unnatural and sickly. She stares at it, fingers the outlines of veins on the back of her hand. It reminds her of her mother, a nurse who would check your pulse when she pulls you in for a handshake. She shakes the thought away. Covering her eyes in the crook of her elbow, she sighs and pulls up the blanket. If she could just sleep, maybe she will feel less worked up in the morning.</p>
<p>	In the morning it is no better. She and Spencer slip past each other, avoid their eyes. He slithers through the bathroom door when Jo leaves. She sequesters herself in the corner of the guest room Elias has been sleeping in to get a few minutes away from the unease. Both of them regard Elias with a similarly chipper, albeit fake, affect. Jo absolutely swears she can see Spencer jolt forward to pull this rollercoaster down.</p>
<p>It is a nearly endless fluttery stomach, about to crash feeling. The build up is painful, unyielding uncertainty, sure, but at least it allows her to expect to be hurt. Jo could fight, she thinks, could throw a fit and go down kicking and screaming. Instead, she just waits for Spencer to throw that shoe. She’s expecting it so much that when Spencer finally pulls her aside, with Elias content to eat the cereal that Spencer swore he had just in case and not because it was his favorite, she is relieved. </p>
<p>	“Jo,” he starts, face so serious that Jo can’t stand to look.</p>
<p>	“Spencer,” she says. </p>
<p>	What should have made him feel a bit more comfortable only exacerbates the anxiety in his intestines. “It’s unfair of me to have asked you to take care of Elias. He’s my brother, my responsibility, and I’ve… Stunted your growth in exchange for the opportunity to achieve my own.”</p>
<p>	Just because she is prepared doesn’t mean she doesn’t tear up. “Why do you sound so fuckin’... formal? If you want to fire me, you could just say so.”</p>
<p>	“I’m not firing you,” Spencer says, voice defensive despite the fact that he is absolutely firing her. “I want you to have your own life. One that doesn’t have to be contingent on my brother.”</p>
<p>	“Woah, Spence. By now, he’s my fuckin’ brother, too.” </p>
<p>	Spencer holds his hands up, a reflex almost, and lowers them when he notices. “I know, Jo. You’ve done so much for him. And me. But he doesn’t have to be your responsibility forever.”</p>
<p>	“It’s not a responsibility. It’s my life.”</p>
<p>	Her voice breaks on the words and Spencer faces the counter, turning away from her. It feels wrong. She’s not angry the way he had always known her to be. “It’s too much responsibility, clearly, if you’ve had to bring him to work with you.”</p>
<p>	Waxing crescent, she thinks, as her nails dig into the skin on her palms. “You knew that his day program closed,” she says. The fingernails, the biting of her tongue, it’s all just barely enough for her to keep her top on.</p>
<p>	“Jo,” he starts, and she knows that he continues speaking, but she has stopped listening. She is focused on keeping the tears in her eyes there and not running down her cheeks. She nods along with Spencer’s mini speech, eyes on the metal at the bottom of his fridge. Only when he is silent, staring at her, does he respond.</p>
<p>	“Yeah. Okay.”</p>
<p>	Spencer continues, words quick so that maybe his voice will be louder than his brain for a moment, “I can pay. For you to live, I mean. At least until you can get a better job. You can finally use that political science degree.”</p>
<p>	“Fuck you.” It spills and she doesn’t care to stop it.  “I don’t need your pity,” she says. Jo keeps her voice low so as not to alert Elias, but spits the words. This is what Spencer had been expecting. Hoping for, maybe. It’s a lot better of an excuse. “I don’t do this because I fuckin’ need you. I do this because I fuckin’ love you.”</p>
<p>	“It’s not pity, it’s--”</p>
<p>	Jo turns, walks away. When Spencer follows, she is sitting next to Elias at the table. He grins, leaning in to bump foreheads with Jo. She smiles so wide, and only a few tears make their way past her lashes. </p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	A few hours later, Spencer shuts the door lightly behind him. He had intended to leave almost immediately, giving Jo to have a few moments to collect herself. He is sure that she’ll get it, someday. He’s taking care of her. Looking out for her. Putting her first because someone has to put her first. He’s trying to undo mistakes he’s made in the past.</p>
<p>	He’s not trying to run from the present.</p>
<p>	The staircase is empty, as per usual, and the cold, lonely space allows him to take his first deep breath in a great while. He adjusts his bag on his shoulder. There’s not exactly a reason he needs it, not like he’s going in to put in some work at the office, but still it feels wrong to go to Quantico without it. When he had headed for the door, he picked it up with no thought. The route to the train station closest to his apartment should have a little worn center where his feet have fallen every time he’s made this trek. His memory makes it so he can be certain that the toes of his shoes step on the cracks and stains in the sidewalk in the same position each time. The reliability is comforting.</p>
<p>When he reaches his train, the feeling of the metal under his hand is a cool surprise rather than a welcome sensation. It takes 2 and a half more minutes than his usual range, possibly due to the difference in commuters at this time, but he’s made the trip at so many odd hours that he’s sure the average must include this. Still, the extra 150 seconds gives him time to practice how he will speak to Hotch. He hasn’t said anything, only checking that they are between cases. This way, at least, he can back out if he really, truly needs to. And he might.</p>
<p>	The walk from his station to the building is entirely mindless. He rehearses, over and over, until the words don’t sound like words and then some more. It keeps his brain quiet because he has no space to think anything else. He is so preoccupied that he doesn’t hear the people at the front desk greet him as he checks in, he doesn’t notice that the elevator is not, in fact, empty on his way up. </p>
<p>	Thankfully, Spencer doesn’t have the presence of mind to be embarrassed. Once in the bullpen, Hotch spots him from his office windows. </p>
<p>	“Reid, what brings you to the BAU?”</p>
<p>	“I wanted to apply for leave.” It is nothing like the speech he had prepared, but the middle of the bullpen doesn’t really feel like the place for theatrics. Not that it was theatrical, really, just… Planned. Spencer can do a plan.</p>
<p>	Hotch squints. “You’re on leave.”</p>
<p>	“I wanted to apply for an extended leave.”</p>
<p>	“Why don’t we talk in my office?”</p>
<p>	Behind the closed door and tilted blinds, Spencer is finally able to take a deep breath. Hotch motions for him to sit, taking a seat of his own besides his desk. Spencer crosses his hands in his lap. Then he uncrosses them. He glances at Hotch, stares at the gap between the floor and the edge of the door, to the slight spike at the top of Hotch’s hair. Certain that Spencer is not going to begin the conversation, Hotch starts. “You still have quite a few weeks of bereavement leave, Reid. We all expect you to use it to the fullest extent.”</p>
<p>	“I know, sir. I intend to take it.” Hotch nods like the conversation is over. “But after that. I’m going to be assuming guardianship of my brother. I’ll need a few extra weeks to acclimate.”</p>
<p>	They stare at each other for a few moments before Hotch turns to face Spencer head-on. “Reid, I understand that this is an adjustment. If this is truly what you want, the team and I will support you through the transition.” He pauses. Reid wonders if it’s for dramatic effect. “However, I feel you should think about it.”</p>
<p>	“Sir, I’ve already made the decision.”</p>
<p>	“I will fill out the paperwork for a few months leave. At the end of your bereavement leave in a month, I will file it.”</p>
<p>	He could fight. He could argue that Hotch is treating him like a child and that he deserves to be able to make his own choices. He could. But he knows that Hotch is trying to care for him. And that a fit, while an entertaining thought, is not deserving of the respect he’s looking for. A little, little bit of him thinks he might be grateful for the out.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	Sergio curls himself around Penelope’s feet. She is propped up by her elbows on the arm of her couch, cup of hot chocolate in hand, throw blanket wrapped around her legs. Soft music drifts in from her kitchen and she hums along. She thumbs through a book, scanning the pages for dialogue and action but none of it catches her eye. Sighing, she sets the book down on her side table. Sergio, seemingly noticing the antsy energy, vacates the couch. On her way out of Quantico, she had heard bits and pieces of a conversation she knows she’s not supposed to but once she was listening she couldn't stop. It’s in her nature.</p>
<p>Compartmentalization is a skill that should have been listed on the job offer. It may even have been. Penelope Garcia, unfortunately, never received that job offer. Her impromptu, under-duress acquisition of a job at the BAU did not come with the same preparations that the other team members got. Of course, she’s too far in by now. What she is unable to compartmentalize, she buries, or she distracts from.</p>
<p>	Her favorite distraction is others. The team, either fortunately or unfortunately depending, is composed of the most emotionally illiterate. Penelope watches, profiling of her own, constantly. She sees the way Emily’s face falls when a phone call does not make it to its recipient and takes note. She notices Derek’s increasingly clenched fists in the round table room. Should she see these things compound, she’d intervene. Coordinating this schedule takes up so much of herself she has little room for much else.</p>
<p>	She’s not exactly certain what it is she’s escaping when she hears about Spencer’s leave request. Maybe it’s nothing, just the habit of pushing every thought from her brain. Still, she hears of Spencer’s plans and knows that it is up to her to arrange some sort of solution.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hey guys im sorry i developed danganronpa as a special interest and became a cosplayer but i swear im going to finish this i literally have 1.5 chapters left to write and then i can just post the rest of it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. i leave all alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The most notable thing is that the car is unbearably hot. It’s not that hot in Virginia yet, and the AC in Derek’s car is at the highest setting possible, but sweat pools in the crook of Jo’s back and collects at her hairline. She hopes that Derek doesn’t notice. Her knuckles are white around the steering wheel, so white they’re growing red, and they haven’t even turned the car on yet.</p>
<p>“What do you do first?” Derek asks.</p>
<p>	“Uhh,” Jo starts, looking anxiously around the car. “Adjust the mirrors?” She holds her hand up to the mirror questioningly.</p>
<p>	His smile is exaggerated and he claps his hand on her shoulder. “That’s my girl!” Jo jumps at the volume. “Can you reach the pedals?”</p>
<p>	Jo depresses each, pulls the seat up, and depresses them again. “Good. Now what?”</p>
<p>	“Turn the car on.”</p>
<p>	Jo gasps. She shakes her head. “No, we’re not at that point yet. Don’t I have to… Adjust the air conditioner first?”</p>
<p>	Laughing, Derek places a hand on the back of the drivers’ seat and turns around to make sure no one else is sharing the movie theater parking lot with them. “It’s just us. Turn the car on.” Jo gives him an uneasy look but does as he says. “Good. Now step on the brake.” She obliges. “And put the car in drive.” </p>
<p>The car begins to inch forward. “This is good! I’m good.”</p>
<p>“Jo, you have to get off the brake now.”</p>
<p>After a few slow, slow circles around the parking lot, Jo seems to relax. She never quite reaches 25 miles per hour. There are a few corners that she takes a bit too wide and a few stops she rolls through, but for the most part, she does okay. </p>
<p>“Word is that you’re going back to Vegas and leaving pretty boy back here,” Derek says after a stretch of intermittent, mindless conversation.</p>
<p>Jo knew it was coming. “Guess it had to happen eventually,” she says. She slows the car to a stop at a sign they have been pretending is a stop.</p>
<p>“Roll up,” Derek says. “How long have you been with him?”</p>
<p>“12 years.” Jo rolls. “This good?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Derek pauses. “You really ready to just give all that up?”<br/>“It’s not up to me.” She stops the car. “Is that what he told you? That I quit on him?”</p>
<p>Derek’s eyes widen. “Woah, Jo, no, he didn’t say that. I just-”</p>
<p>“Assumed,” Jo finishes. She doesn’t need to look to Derek to see his protesting. “It’s fine. No, I’m not quitting. I’m… Having my own life.” The bite in her voice is almost funny.</p>
<p>The car is quiet. The AC hum provides a base of white noise that their breathing fits into. Jo heaves heavy and hard breaths. She peeks over her shoulder, looks left and right, and takes a turn. Derek’s breathing is soft and calm, this difference not unnoticed by each of them. He knows that this is where he says something reassuring, or at very least something to comfort her about her driving. Usually, he’s at least somewhat able to give some sort of vague assurance to guide grieving families through an investigation. </p>
<p>“Want to try it out in the street?”</p>
<p>“Absolutely not!” Jo says.</p>
<p>Derek laughs. “Okay. Maybe next time.” As the quiet settles again, he finally finds words to say. “He’s a good kid. So is Spencer. They’re going to be fine.”</p>
<p>Jo grips the steering wheel tightly again. She bites her tongue and nods. “I know.” It wasn’t them that she was worried about, really.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	The plan is to paint eventually, probably. From here, it sounds like a far off, dream sort of idea. Still, it sounds good and the prospect makes Eli happy. He spends the morning waiting for Alex Blake, who Spencer has promised he will like, flicking through a book of paint samples that Spencer had saved from moving in. There are about 20 sticky notes sticking out of the top to signal the ones he likes. He has written in his smallest, neatest handwriting the name of the color from the page, just in case he isn’t there to point out which ones are his favorites.</p>
<p>	Once Blake arrives, and Spencer facilitates an awkward reintroduction, he slips out the door. </p>
<p>	Alex and Elias are sitting on the floor of the once guest bedroom, now Elias’s bedroom. The door sways and creaks with a breeze. Elias has the book of paint samples spread across his lap, and he is pointing to each one he likes. He looks, staring impatiently, until Alex reads off the name of the color. He made sure not to pick any that only had numbers for names, even if they were good colors. If he felt up to it, which he doesn’t because Alex is a new friend and those are much harder to make yourself understood to, he would explain how this is exactly like MTV Cribs. </p>
<p>	Only once they’ve gone through the book, is Elias ready to look through the bag that Alex brought with her. She retrieves it from the kitchen and places it on the floor in front of him, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He unceremoniously dumps the bag out, overwhelmed by the plethora of sensory toys laid out before him “I thought we could make a sensory space in your room. Something to make this feel like home,” she explains. Elias grins up at her.</p>
<p>	With a small groan, Blake sinks down to the floor to sit next to Elias. From the bag, she pulls a few folding baskets to store them in. She sets them in the corner, filling them with the toys from the floor. Elias sees her example and follows suit. He excitedly scoops overflowing piles into his hands and laughs as the spill out in the travel from floor to basket. Alex laughs too, and the sound is the lightest, softest one this apartment has seen in weeks. If the walls could remember, had the eidetic recollection of their occupant, they would know the last time. It had been during a phone call.</p>
<p>	The laughter dies down once the tidying is complete. Elias stares at Blake, eyes scanning her face. He likes it, he decides. It is droopy like his mother’s, but much more round. With this decision made, he grabs his device. </p>
<p>	“Tent,” he says.</p>
<p>	“Your tent! Spencer told me all about it. I didn’t bring a tent, I’m sorry. But Jo is going to ship it back here and when it arrives I can come back and help you put it together.” When Alex had pitched the idea of visiting, of watching over Elias for a few hours so that Spencer could tend to some business, it had been on the premise of building him a sensory corner. Spencer was immediately accepting. He’d only made the decision to move Elias to Virginia the day before and had already grown tired of the lack of support from every person who had heard it. He had described Elias’s room in Las Vegas, and his tent, one of the small kiddie ones, covered in thick towels to block the light and comfortably muffle the outside sounds. It was just small enough for him to wiggle into without feeling cramped.</p>
<p>	“Jo,” Elias says. His device doesn’t communicate the questioning tone that his expression does.</p>
<p>	Spencer had left a lot to be desired in his explanations before leaving Alex with Elias, a noticeably shorter and less descriptive informative monologue than his usual. He had however explained that Elias, either willingly or unwillingly, was not understanding what was going on. “Jo is going to pack up everything from Las Vegas and send it to you and Spencer here,” Alex says gently.<br/>Elias looks past her into the doorway. His face is scrunched up in anger, not subtly, but he doesn’t say much of anything. Alex decides to push. “What do you think about that? About Jo staying in Las Vegas while you are going to be here?”</p>
<p>The toys in the basket provide him a good enough reason to ignore the question. He pulls it close to him and riffles through them, hands stopping when they slide against something smooth but sticky and he pulls it out. It squishes and sloshes in his hand and he gets lost in the way that it looks. And it’s only an added benefit that he can’t hear Alex.<br/>Sliding his voice device into his lap, Alex waits for him to put his thoughts together. The soft prompt is enough to pull Eli back from his brain and he starts to chew on his lips. “Jo,” he says, clicking through to finish his sentence. “Stay here. Jo stay here.”</p>
<p>“Is that what you’d like?” Alex asks. </p>
<p>Elias nods, pleased that someone has finally understood that he isn't confused. He knows what’s happening, he’d just prefer it didn’t. Reids, it seems, have never been great at emotion processing.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	The final piece of Garcia’s “Solve Spencer’s Problems” mission was the easiest to put together. The unit chief was willing to play a part, and Spencer was supposed to come in for a psychological evaluation eventually. It was believable enough that it could happen now. Hotch had even listened to a good amount of Garcia’s harangue about what to say and what to look out for (this good amount being about a minute). </p>
<p>	It was also the easiest to fall apart. It only takes a few minutes for it to come up, and Spencer is defensive before Hotch has voiced anything at all.</p>
<p>	“Reid, I understand that family is important to you. It’s important to all of us,” he says. His words are wide and sweeping and he hopes they provide a comfortable enough spot for Spencer to feel heard.</p>
<p>	The thing about profilers is that they never fall for it. “That has nothing to do with Maeve. You’re conducting a psych eval because of what happened with Maeve.”</p>
<p>	“It would be irresponsible of me to ignore everything that has happened since then.” He doesn’t say it, but the bite of drug use is at the ends of the words. It’s meant as a descriptor but it sounds like a threat.</p>
<p>	“I’m not asking you to ignore it, sir,” Spencer says, intending to continue. He can’t put together a sentence that sounds good enough. “I am capable of handling this on my own.”</p>
<p>	Aaron wants to be tactful, wants to lead Reid to a more informed, aware decision, but knows that if this were a strategy that truly worked, they wouldn’t be here now. “I don’t believe that you are doing this in order to ‘handle’ anything.”</p>
<p>	Spencer can feel his brain shift from it’s usual kind, logical seat into one of emotion. It steers him jagged and jerky, nearly jumping out of his seat to respond. “What exactly is it that I’m doing? Taking care of my brother, my family?”</p>
<p>	Hotch centers his stern expression at Spencer. “What you’re doing is creating an obligation to take care of your brother as an excuse to seclude yourself. What you’re doing is giving yourself someone to be responsible for in hopes that it will keep you from doing drugs.”</p>
<p>	It teeters on the edge of too far and not far enough and Spencer knows it has been brewing since he first put a needle in his skin of his own will. It hits him with such force he can’t allocate the space to form some sort of defense. None would suffice. </p>
<p>	Instead, he collected his things hastily, standing to push the chair in. </p>
<p>“Reid, we’re not finished.”</p>
<p>	“We have already agreed I will report to you at the end of my bereavement leave in order to extend my time off. I don’t need a psych eval until then,” he says, shoving the chair and leaving without meeting Hotch’s eyes. When the door is shut behind him, he stalls, turning briefly but never making it all the way around. </p>
<p>	It goes without saying that Garcia’s delicately built plan has come to a screeching halt.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>guys i did it im done i just have to do an epilogue and post the rest :)))))</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. all the remains of a cadaver of days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When a great number of things have changed without warning, it can be a comfort to focus on the things that cannot change. For example, if you had been planning a life with a woman who is murdered very suddenly and tragically, it can be comforting to cling tightly to family. This is a bond that can’t change. Or, if you have been moved from 165 Millhouse St. apartment 4e, Las Vegas, Nevada to an address in Virginia that you have yet to memorize because Jo hasn’t practiced that with you yet, it can be a comfort to watch your favorite Punk’d episodes twice a day. Even if it makes your brother very, very annoyed.</p>
<p>	Or, if you are packing up your apartment because you are a single tenant and no longer need a place this large, you might play Green Day’s American Idiot. And sing the words loudly. This is how Jo spends her mornings since returning home. She picks up her old schedule at work, takes shifts others leave behind in addition, but still has so many hours of her days to fill. She knows the neighbors are unlikely to be home, knows that these few hours are the only time she’ll be able to sing along to the music loud enough that she won’t have to think, so she allocates this time to packaging up the apartment. She sets her own stuff aside, knowing that the boxes she packs this in will only have to make it a few streets down, while Elias’s will have to be shipped cross-country. Thick, pre-taped boxes litter the living room, his bedroom, even hers, ready to be sealed when they have reached their limits of clothes, stim toys, books. In other corners of the house she has tucked shoe boxes, the box from the coffee maker, garbage bags she intends to fill with her own things. Today, she is tackling the living room, picking through the stacks of books they have on the coffee table, on the shelves, on the floor in little piles. She has one pile of library books, another of those she knows Eli won’t read. In a heap in front of her is the rest of them. She picks through them slowly, thumbing the ruffled edge of the pages as she reads the back to see if it’s something of his or something of hers. A few she tosses to her side, a few she lays in a box to be shipped, but most of them return to the mound in front of her. </p>
<p>	Eventually, she resolves that he should take them all. Pushing on her knees, she stands with a groan, and cracks her back. Her socked feet pad through the short hallway to Elias’s room. It takes a moment of standing in front of the door for her to push it open. Jo has done most of the work in here, knowing immediately that everything in the room was to be shipped off. It was mindless folding, a tetris of shoving as much as she could fit into boxes. They sit on his bed, piled high on top of each other. On his walls two picture schedules still hang. They are long strips of construction paper that she and Spencer had laminated at the library. The one on the left is a yellowing, sun bleached thing, originally red, with edges peeling up at all corners. The one on the right is blue, similarly beaten but to a lesser extent. Thick strips of velcro are spaced a few inches apart and they hold on smaller sheets of paper with pictures of activities. Jo reaches out to one, picks absentmindedly at the edge of one. </p>
<p>	“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Jo says aloud. Tears gather on her lashes. She thinks of the countless nights she’s spent attaching their plans for the next day. The mornings she’s stood with Eli as they read out the schedule for the day. Every night, every morning of her life for the last eight years at least. She pulls the schedules down and lays them on the bed next to the boxes. <br/>Finally, she wipes at her eyes and laughs to herself. Jo picks up the schedules, taps the tape on the back to ensure it’s still got some stick, and pins them up on the wall next to her own bed. </p>
<p>--</p>
<p>	The first indication that Spencer might need help comes late on their 8th morning. The apartment still smells faintly of pancakes, though Elias and Spencer had only reheated the leftovers from the diner they had gone to the previous morning. After a few repetitions of their daily plan, Spencer had thought Elias was clear on the schedule. However, he was met with resistance. “Eli, we need to leave now if we want to make it to the library.”</p>
<p>	Spencer knows that Elias can hear him. Biologically speaking, his ears, the muscle and bone and cartilage within them work just as they’re supposed to. His brain will process the speech, turning garbled sounds into words, even if it won’t recognize it. Still, instead of moving, Elias continues to wiggle his fingers, turning the page of his book. Spencer clenches his teeth and takes a breath before trying again. “Are you listening?”</p>
<p>	Elias reaches the end of his page and looks up to his brother. “I’m not done,” he says, and he returns to reading. </p>
<p>	It takes an enormous amount of restraint for Spencer not to get upset. There’s something about siblings, about little brothers, that even Spencer and Elias are not above. “We can finish reading after we go to the library.” He’s struggled to come up with a schedule for Eli, some sort of regularity that he can depend on. He had figured that Elias would embrace it, would cling to structure like he has so many times before. Instead, Eli has been pushing against it as hard as he can. </p>
<p>	Elias groans, closing the book. “I can’t read the old book after I go to the library. You get new books at the library. No more old ones.” He crosses his arms, pouts, spitting image of the angry teenagers he’s seen on television. With Spencer lately, Elias has come to learn that making himself difficult is easier than making himself understood. So, he settles himself in his spot on the floor and refuses to move for hours. Spencer, eventually but not immediately, gives up, and the two never make it to the library.</p>
<p>	The second time he finds himself wishing he were not alone is later that week. Per request from Penelope, he has brought Elias in to visit the BAU. He is told they are between cases, they should have at least the day to show the younger Reid around and tell him all the embarrassing stories they know about Spencer. This, unlike the failed library trip, rouses Elias to leave the second he hears about it. They map out the day the night before. The morning of, the two of them repeat “Train, then walk, then work and see friends, then home” almost a hundred times, with the help of Elias’s AAC when it’s too exciting and vocal stims come before speaking. </p>
<p>Spencer knows that Elias has been to the BAU before, a day that feels like years ago now, but still he is surprised with the ease with which Elias glides through the building. Elias leads the way, taking them into the bullpen and almost immediately to JJ’s side. </p>
<p>“Eli!” JJ says, arms opening to embrace him in them. They sway together for a moment before separating. Since his move, JJ has been to the apartment a few times to visit Elias, has promised to bring Henry by. This promise never quite comes to be, and Spencer is a little grateful, because while he loves his godson, Elias is not a fan of children and the way they fuss.</p>
<p>Elias looks around the bullpen, counting heads of those he recognizes. JJ and Spencer watch him put the numbers together with names, until, finally, he turns to Spencer confused. “Where is Penelope?”<br/>JJ begins to explain, hooking arms with Elias to lead him to their friends office. He is so excited, so distracted, he nearly misses the one they are looking for walking into the bullpen herself, hands grasping a case file and face low. Her eyes meet Spencer’s first, mouth parting slightly but not moving to speak. He nods.</p>
<p>Penelope pulls the case file behind her back and grins to greet Elias. “Hey, you! It’s always nice to have a cute face in the office.” She leans forward to whisper into his ear, “And you are definitely the cute brother.” </p>
<p>Elias giggles, soaking up the attention. His hands shake and dance and he bounces on his heels. Both JJ and Penelope look to Spencer, hoping to avoid being the one to bring Eli down.</p>
<p>It goes over about as well as you might think it would. Elias sinks into himself, not speaking, not moving, just standing in the bullpen and staring. Only with pleading from all three agents does Elias make his sad trek back to the elevator. He stands turned away from Spencer, mouth pursed and fingers clicking through options on his device. Just before the elevator doors open, he finally finds the word he’s looking for. “Jo.”</p>
<p>The final time is two weeks after he sent Jo home. The thought pops into his head in the middle of the day, standing over a pot of noodles boiling on his stove. The two of them have not yet made it to the grocery store, and the skinny box of linguini that had slid into hiding in the back of Spencer’s cabinet was all they had to make. Spencer intends to spice it up, add some sort of nutrient in with the sauce, but digs through his fridge only to find nothing of the sort. Where usually at least a few peppers and an onion might sit on his counter is only an empty bowl. He rakes a shaky hand through his hair with a sigh and stirs the noodles in the pot. An ear is tuned to Elias in the other room, keeping an eye when his back is turned. Spencer’s hand returns to his hair, getting stuck in its tangled lengths. He adds a haircut to his list of things he has to get done with in the 25th and 26th hour of his day. </p>
<p>	Taking a seat at his table, he loses track of himself, eyes glazing over, ears only taking in the lull of Catfish in the other room. Lilting voices fade into white noise and he doesn’t quite sleep but his head falls into his hands and he doesn’t have any recollection of the minutes that elapse. He is started awake by the zap of water bubbling over the pot, evaporating when it hits the stovetop. His reactions are slow, like moving through jelly, as he pulls the pot off the stove and pours it into a colander waiting in the sink. He shakes the noodles, barely missing his arms with the hot water that flies off. Resolving to neglect the need for nutrition, he slices a thick cut of butter and melts it in the bottom of the hot pan.</p>
<p>Sitting in his living room, chewing on slightly less than al dente pasta with his brother, Spencer realizes that he is not overwhelmed by Elias. He is not overwhelmed by Elias’s behaviors. His brother is a constant, something he was used to before he lived any other life. </p>
<p>Before he was kid genius, pretty boy, Spence, before he was agent or doctor or Reid, he was a brother. The instinct to throw your arm out and catch the one next to him developed quicker than the instinct to tap the hip for a firearm. No, he isn’t overwhelmed or even upset by the way his life looks with his brother in it. He realizes he has been shoving newspaper into gaping wound, wet and sticky and then drying and crusting together. Whatever he thought he was doing by bringing Elias here, he isn’t. He doesn’t forget about Maeve, he doesn’t feel like he’s saved Jo, he doesn’t give Elias a better life than he had before. All he’s done is disrupt.</p>
<p>	Agitate.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>	This is not to say that all agitation is bad. In chemistry, agitation is used to ensure all chemicals involved in experiments are able to react. Agitation can be used to make butter, without which we would be lacking french croissants. When agitated, a young man who has been settled but lonesome can see new skies. A woman who has worked her whole life for one that is not hers can explore. A man who has been struck too many times can duck around the throws.</p>
<p>	Whatever it was they said about grass is still true. But just because something has come to rest doesn’t mean it must stay that way.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this is my lemony snicket chapter its also the second to last</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. can't ever change</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s most certainly sunnier in Las Vegas. When he lived there, Elias would rush into the morning light, 11 a.m. when the sun was rising to its highest point and he and Jo had a day full of plans, and he would squint. He would hold a buzzing hand over his eyes and huff as he climbed the hill or Jo would settle her sunglasses on the edge of his nose. Both of those options would end with him squinting again, but the few seconds reprieve would still be nice. In Virginia, Elias squints about as frequently, but not because of the sun.</p>
<p>	Almost a month after Jo went home (three weeks and 5 days), Elias awakes to a silent house. Most days, he curls himself in his room, huddled under layers of blankets with the air conditioner as high as it goes, and is shaken awake by Spencer after he finds that just calling for Elias isn't enough. So he pushes the door open soft with the pads of fingers, tip toes out of the room and checks the time on the kitchen stove. There is a bite of anxiety when he sees it reads 10:30, but this subsides when he realizes he has no schedule to keep up with. Much like his brother, he has fallen into a new expectable cycle of nothing. Each day bleeds together as the two of them make the decision to sleep, to read, to be so completely alone yet next to each other. Elias weighs the pros and cons of going back to sleep (good dreams, comfortable place, weighted blanket, vs. having free range of the TV in the living room, which has a much better sound system and a remote that makes it far easier to skip back and forth through Catfish episodes). </p>
<p>	What wins is some sort of mixture. Elias sets himself up in the living room, bowl of sugary cereal in his lap that he knows Spencer would hate to see him eating on the couch. The voices are loud, surrounding him as they spill through the speakers, and Elias acquaints himself with the rewind button when a certain phrase strikes him. </p>
<p>	When the bowl is empty, Elias brings it to the sink. “Good job, Eli,” he says, echoing the words he knows Jo would be saying had she seen. He notes that he can hear the TV loudly from the kitchen, so probably just as loud from Spencer’s room too. The bite of this anxiety doesn’t subside. Without pausing to mute the show, or even to knock on his brother’s door, he rushes to the door and turns the knob.</p>
<p>	Now, Elias had not seen his brother after his overdose. He couldn’t possibly see the symmetry between these two events or notice the way Spencer has lain his arms out, or tossed his legs around, and how he looks so, so much like he did on his floor a few weeks ago. But Elias is not stupid. He knows that the darkened circles around his brother’s eyes aren’t good, he knows what sick looks like even if he doesn’t quite know how sick sad can make you. He doesn’t waste time thinking of these things, though, instead he cries, almost immediately, and climbs into the sheets next to Spencer. Sobs shake his body, shake the bed and this is what finally wakes Spencer up. </p>
<p>	The older Reid blinks, mouth ungluing itself from the sticky sleep, and pulls Elias into his arms. His mind moves quickly, shifting through both times he’s seen his brother cry and what was done to calm him, as well as things in the past few weeks that can have contributed to this episode. Both lists are far too lengthy for comfort. But his brother doesn’t stop, doesn’t wait for Spencer’s quick brain to analyze the best way to act. </p>
<p>	“What’s wrong?” Spencer asks, aware of how silly the question is. Elias can’t breathe deep enough to answer, and instead points, hitting Spencer hard in the center of his chest. “I am?” Elias nods.</p>
<p>	Spencer rubs his brother’s back, slow circles with a heavy hand. He rocks with Elias. When the tears have slowed, he sighs. “I know.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This far into ‘new life’, Jo had at least expected to have made some new friends. On the plane ride home, she had pictured it in detail. How when she was with Eli, she didn’t have time to make any friends, so now that she’s alone, she’ll have tons. It was a vivid picture of her following that same schedule she always has, this time solo, and running into swathes of interesting people that just so happened to find her interesting as well. Now that it’s happening, however, she finds that she hadn’t been too busy to make friends. She just wasn’t very good at it. </p>
<p>	Today, she is faced with this again. Jo woke up late, a solitary day off the likes of which she isn’t to see again for the next month. This is, of course, the way she likes it. On the wall next to her bed, she eyes the schedule she has pinned up for herself. It had felt silly, the first time she stuck the little pictures onto the velcro strips for only herself, but now, it feels the same as it had when she was putting it together for Elias. She is to do procedural things first, things like the grocery store, the laundromat. These are things she can do mindlessly, the ones that, similar to her job, she takes solace in the lack of awareness she needs to be having. After these things, she has stuck up the card for “library”. Jo has plans to visit the bookstore she used to frequent in college, a few blocks away from Spencer’s old house, a small shop run by an old father and his daughter. They don’t have a card for that, though.</p>
<p>	The walk is longer than the ones to work. When Spencer had found an apartment for Jo and Elias to move into, he was careful to choose one in walking distance of everything they might need. The house the brothers grew up in was quite a distance from most things, putting it on the outskirts of Vegas and a bit of a journey from the apartment that Jo has yet to move from. She finally sets out towards the bookstore at about 5, daily chores done and phone sufficiently charged in order to keep her safe. She’s mapped out the walk, just to make sure, and the estimated time it will take it about an hour. If she’s lucky, she may get it down to 45 minutes. </p>
<p>	Jo uses this time to prepare. When she was in college, the time she got to peruse the shelves of this store was treasured. It was always packed, sardines of college students and 20-somethings looking for a surprise favorite among the books. Where she had never had the time to spend conversing with anyone in college, all she had now was time. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to discern who to talk to, what sort of things begin a conversation nicely, but maybe she’d even be lucky enough that someone else would talk to her first. This is a pleasing thought, one she jumps back to many times. When Jo was in college, the daughter of the owner would perch at the counter, too, just a year or two older than Jo was. Jo wonders if just maybe she will still work there today.</p>
<p>	The sun has barely moved from its position in the sky when she finally arrives. It sits angrily just above the horizon, right in the eyeline of everyone who can see. Still, it lights the shelves of the dim bookstore nicely, and Jo doesn’t spend much time dawdling before drifting to them. She fingers the spines of older, used books, brain sparing a moment to wonder where each of them has been. What they’ve seen. None of them catch her eye, unfortunately, and she moves on.</p>
<p>	The store is nearly empty. A boy, maybe a teenager, sits on a chair behind the counter, but besides him, Jo is the only person inside. She scans the shelves, pokes through the bucket of bookmarks at the front, but ultimately, she only spends 20 minutes in the store.</p>
<p>	There is no speed walking on the journey home. Misty eyes only stare down at the cracks in the sidewalk in front of her. Jo almost, nearly places a call to Spencer, eager to hear Elias’s voice, but never goes through with it.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With their genius on sabbatical of sorts, the BAU operates surprisingly well. The members slide into their newly allocated roles, feeling a different comfort than when Spencer had been out for grief. They spread his duties over the group, giving Garcia a bit of the extra research, JJ a bit of the interviewing, Morgan a bit of the geographical profiling. When they’re moving quickly enough, packed into the conference room of a foreign police station, pinning photos up and shuffling through files and huffing, they can almost feel him sitting between them.</p>
<p>	All of this makes it difficult to see him struggle. Never one to seek help, especially not one to ask for it, Spencer attempts to do it on his own. This turning a blind eye has worked out well for the BAU in the past, with Spencer tending to work his issues out eventually, albeit maybe not in the most healthy way.</p>
<p>	Still, Garcia is not content to simply let her plan fail. It was too complicated, that’s all. It had too many moving parts. What she needs to do, what she had needed to do from the beginning was go straight to Spencer. </p>
<p>	And she does. The same day, hours after Spencer and Elias had fallen asleep again in Spencer’s bed, after they had gone to get fast food, ditching any inclination towards vegetables and drinking milkshakes instead, she knocks on his apartment door. Penelope had not bothered to check in first, make sure anyone is home, only bets on a luck guiding her that they will be.</p>
<p>	They are. Elias cracks the door open, chain lock still connected, and brightens when he sees Penelope standing in front of him. As he unlocks and opens the door, Spencer calls from another room, “Elias? What are you doing?”</p>
<p>	“Hi, Spencer,” Garcia answers, grinning when Spencer rushes to the doorway.</p>
<p>	“Garcia…” he says, looking to Elias with a confused expression. Elias doesn’t look at him, eyes glued to Penelope.</p>
<p>	“You!” Garcia says, leveling a finger at Spencer, “I need to talk to you.” </p>
<p>	Spencer weighs an argument over simply letting it happen. He motions for Garcia to sit, and sits across the table as well. Elias chooses the seat next to Penelope. </p>
<p>	Admittedly neither of them quite know how this should go down. Though not a profiler, Garcia sorts through the input, Spencer’s exhausted face, the messy apartment, the way Elias had looked when he first opened the door. “This can’t be how you planned it,” she comments.</p>
<p>	Spencer laughs. “It’s not.”</p>
<p>	“Then let us help.”</p>
<p>	And then Spencer erects the wall again. “I can handle it, Garcia. Elias is easy, really. I can be back at work in a couple of months.”</p>
<p>	“I don’t care about you coming back to work… Well, yes I do, obviously I miss seeing your face and hearing those facts but I care more about you actually coping with what happened and doing it healthily.” </p>
<p>	Spencer bites the inside of his lips. He moves to speak but never does.</p>
<p>	Penelope turns her attention to Elias. “How’s the move for you?”</p>
<p>	He blushes under her gaze and shrugs. Still, she doesn’t falter, hand laid on top of his, she waits for an answer. He takes a moment to sort through his sentence. “I like Spencer’s house,” he begins. Garcia nods. “I liked my house, too.” Elias breathes heavily, finding a comfortable place. “I miss my tent--”</p>
<p>	“Jo is shipping your tent,” Spencer interrupts.</p>
<p>	“Boys, boys,” Garcia chastises.</p>
<p>	She and Spencer turn back to Elias. “I missed Spencer.” He looks toward the ground. “Now, I miss Jo.” He wrings his hands together. “I don’t understand.”</p>
<p>	Dust flits through strips of lights. Spencer finds them much more interesting to look at than this conversation. “I don’t either,” he admits.</p>
<p>	Penelope will later pride herself on having broken through this impenetrable wall. Now, however, she is struck by how awkward this conversation is. “What do you want, Eli?”</p>
<p>	He thinks for a few moments. “Spencer and Jo.”</p>
<p>	“Spence?” </p>
<p>	“I want to call Jo.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this is the last real chapter and i've got an epilogue coming!!! i'm really excited to actually finish this fic bc i don't have a great track record of doing that</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. i wanna visit that place</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>epilogue-ish.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It hasn’t quite gotten cold, but the air has a bit of a hit when you first walk out the door in the morning. Elias has taken to sticking an arm out the window before getting dressed, worked it into his morning routine between brushing his teeth and descending the stairs for breakfast. It’s his second fall in Virginia, his first in their new home. Finding the weather to be suitable for only a long sleeve shirt, he bangs on Jo’s door on his way down the stairs. The upstairs belongs to him and Jo, an expansive attic with a room for each of them, a bathroom and a living room they’ve packed full of shelves and shelves of books. In the corner is his tent, covered in its characteristic towels to dampen the light and sound.</p><p><br/>Downstairs is the kitchen, and Spencer’s house. Sometimes, Spencer locks the door between the kitchen and the rest of his house, but usually it’s held open by a TARDIS doorstop. Today is one of those mornings. Spencer is frying pancakes on the stove, a plate already stacked full of them on the counter beside him. When Elias sees him, he runs, embracing his brother and stepping back to flap his arms excitedly.</p><p><br/>“Work?”</p><p><br/>Spencer pulls away from his brother to flip a pancake. “No work right now. They might call me later.”</p><p><br/>Elias only nods, taking a seat at the kitchen table.</p><p><br/>Jo was awake before Elias took up his job as alarm clock, but doesn’t meet her boys at the breakfast table for quite a few minutes. Much like Spencer, she isn’t due into work today, and instead has made plans to take Elias to the park and to make their own yogurt sundaes. These obligations are much less pressing than getting ready for work, though, so she soaks up a few extra moments in bed.</p><p><br/>When she gets to the table, Elias is bouncing and greets her with a wide grin.</p><p><br/>“Yes, bun, good morning to the early bird,” Jo laughs. “Some of us are just destined to be night owls.”</p><p><br/>“You know, if you’d turn your phone off earlier you’d probably go to sleep earlier,” Spencer comments. “And if you’d open your curtains, you’d wake up a lot easier.”<br/>“Spencie, honey, if you’d just let me sleep late, we wouldn’t have to worry about any of that,” Jo says, digging through the cabinets to pull out her favorite coffee mug. It’s a fat, rounded mug shaped like an M&amp;M.</p><p><br/>“Big cup morning?” Elias asks. Jo laughs and nods.</p><p><br/>“You know it will reflect poorly on Hotch if the employee that he vouched for was late every day.”</p><p><br/>Jo rolls her eyes. “How would you know if I was late? I’ve never been late, thank you very much.” She playfully shoves Spencer. “Plus, I’m an incredible legislative assistant, so all that reflects on Hotch is ‘wow, he gives good recommendations’.”</p><p><br/>“You’ve got me there.”</p><p><br/>Elias grows tired of the conversation, as he should, and sighs. “Can we talk about Princess Bubblegum?”</p><p><br/>“Yes,” Jo and Spencer answer in unison.</p><p><br/>Over the past year or so since the move, Elias has developed a new special interest. This is, of course, the best part of a special interest, where he spends hours devouring information and all of it is new. He and Spencer or Jo have perused the library for hours, speed-reading all the Adventure Time related books so that Elias would only have to check a few out. He has clipped a small figurine from the show on the backpack he takes to his day program. It should come as no surprise that this was a gift from Penelope.</p><p><br/>“Pancakes.” Spencer piles more onto the plate beside him on the counter and carries it to the table. Jo picks one up and rips a bite off before placing it down onto the table. Grumbling, Elias grabs her a plate from the drying rack behind him.</p><p><br/>“Thanks, bub.”</p><p><br/>The morning is so soft, so calm and normal yet carries a warmth that mornings have lacked for a great while. If Spencer were to think back, he isn’t certain he would remember the last morning that felt so sleepy, so still and wispy. He tries not to worry about it, tries not to worry about the time where mornings won’t feel so good anymore. He isn’t there. He’s in between the two. He eats his pancakes, commending himself a bit when he tastes them and finds them to be edible. He listens to his brother info-dump, knowing that the words are the exact same but finding the same enthusiasm in his brother’s voice. He goes to work, takes Elias to his day program. He comes home, reads, sleeps. He is busy. He feels agitated. Just enough to keep things from settling.</p><p><br/>And he doesn’t feel nearly as alone.</p><p><br/>---</p><p><br/>Some days, Jo thinks she may have preferred waitressing. That was so mindless, such a time to lose her sense of self and come back only seconds before she’s able to punch her time card and leave. Her new job, while engaging and exciting and certainly a good use of her degree, is far more draining. She makes no real impact, and she knew she wouldn’t. Jo isn’t a stupid woman, she’s seen the directory of politicians as they make their way up the ladder. She doesn’t exactly want to be a politician, either. They are far too seedy, always seem to need to throw away all sense of self in order to accept money to get further in their career. She’d love to believe she has enough heart and strength to be able to go it alone, to hold true to her convictions and make change, but she can’t be sure she does. It seems to be much easier to stay off of that highway altogether, rather than try and slow everyone down.</p><p><br/>So, as she walks towards the train, she is thinking about the diner. She is remembering the morning walks, is doing her own people watching to account for the lack of Eli’s. She is so caught up in this thought, she can almost, just barely see the streets of Las Vegas instead of these D.C. ones. It distracts her almost enough to miss her phone ringing.</p><p><br/>“Hello?”</p><p><br/>She can tell by the way Spencer heaves in a shaky breath that this will not be good. “Jo?”</p><p><br/>“Yeah. Is everything okay?”</p><p><br/>Spencer, either not hearing the question or not knowing the answer, ignore it. “Can you get to Quantico?”</p><p><br/>Jo feels her stomach disappear, much further than drop. “Where is Eli?”</p><p><br/>“Please, just come to Quantico.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>IM SO SORRY my brain is deeply broken. im sorry that this garbage actually took me months<br/>BUT<br/>i am planning a sequel. and i think its really fun. so i do come bearing gifts.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>when writing this i completely forgot that rossi existed and i dont have the heart to force myself to add him in im not sorry</p><p>ALSO i realized that the way that AAC apps talk isnt obvious to everyone. Everything Eli says is repeated because when you first click the word, the app will read it aloud, and then when you finish the sentence, you click on it and the app will read the sentence all together</p></blockquote></div></div>
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